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ELSIE LINDTNER

BV THE SAME A UTtTOR

THE DANGEROUS AGE

Letters and Fragvtents from
a Woman's Diary

ELSIE LINDTNER

A Sequel to "The Dangerous Age"

BY

KARIN MICHAELIS
STANGELAND

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION
BY

BEATRICE MARSHALL

NEW YORK

JOHN LANE COMPANY

MCMXII

Copyright, 191 2, by
JOHN LANE COMPANY

pi'

PREFACE

READERS and admirers of "The Dan-
gerous Age" — and their name is
legion — will find themselves perfectly
at home in the following story. To them,
Elsie Lindtner's rambling aphorisms, her
Bashkirtseffian revelations of soul, the remark-
ably frank letters which she delights to write
to her friends, among whom she numbers her
divorced husband; above all, her rather pre-
posterous obsession with regard to the dangers
of middle age, will be familiar as a twice-
told tale.

Doubtless many will be charmed to meet
Elsie Lindtner again, when she has passed
through the dreaded furnace of her "forties,"
and is still keeping the spark of inextinguish-
able youthfulness alive within her, by gam-

LISEURf

PREFACE

bling at Monte Carlo, travelling in Greece
with Jeanne of the flaming hair, fencing in
London, riding in New York, and finally
finding happiness and salvation in the adop-
tion of a small offscouring of the streets.

But for those who may have missed reading
the little masterpiece of modern femininity
which only a short time ago set a whole conti-
nent by the ears, some sort of key is, pos-
sibly, necessary to the enjoyment of "Elsie
Lindtner."

In "The Dangerous Age" Elsie Lindtner
writes an autobiographical letter to Joergen
Malthe, the rising young architect, who has
been her ardent admirer. She tells him now
that her mother died when she was born, and
her father was bankrupt, and lived disgraced
in retirement, while she was left to the care
of a servant girl.

From her she learnt that lack of money was
the cause of their sordid life, and from that
moment she worshipped money.

PREFACE

*'I sometimes buried a coin that had been
given me," she writes, "as a dog buries a
bone."

When she went to school little Elsbeth
Bugge was soon informed that she was "the
prettiest girl in the school"; that a pretty face
was worth a fortune.

"From that moment I entered upon the
accursed cult of my person which absorbed
the rest of my childhood and all my first
youth. ... I avoided the sun lest I should
get freckles ; I collected rain water for wash-
ing; I slept with gloves, and though I adored
sweets, I refrained from eating them on ac-
count of my teeth. I spent hours brushing
my hair."

One day when she came home she found
the only big mirror in the house had been
transferred from her father's room and hung
in her own.

"I made myself quite ill with excitement,
and the maid had to put me to bed. But

PREFACE

later on, when the house was quiet, I got up
and lit my lamp. I spent hours gazing at
myself in the glass. There I sat till the sun
rose."

Then follows an account of how this child,
scarcely in her teens, positively set her cap
at a rich, elderly widower, because he had a
fine house.

"My brain reeled as I said to myself, 'Some
day I will live in that house as wife of the
Chief Magistrate.' "

The precociousness of Marie Bashkirtseff
who fell in love with a duke when she ought
to have been playing with her dolls, pales into
insignificance beside this confession.

Elsie left school and went back to Den-
mark engaged to Herr von Brincken, the
Chief Magistrate, but he had heart disease
and she did not marry him. Instead she mar-
ried Richard Lindtner, a wealthy Dane, and
made her home with him in the Old Market
Place at Copenhagen, where for twenty-two

PREFACE

years she was, to outward appearances, a
happy and contented wife.

"I allowed my senses to be inflamed while
my mind remained cold and my heart con-
tracted with disgust. I consciously profaned
the sacred words of love by applying them to
a man whom I chose for his money. Mean-
while, I developed into the frivolous society
woman everybody took me to be. Every
woman wears the mask which best suits her
purpose. My mask was my smile. . . ."

It is only in this book, the second instal-
ment of Elsie Lindtner's fragmentary diary
and correspondence, that she gives us a reason
for leaving her husband after twenty-two
years of married life, the wish that he should
have children. In "The Dangerous Age"
she hints at other and various reasons. To
her friend and cousin, Lili Rothe, the perfect
wife and mother of "lanky daughters," who
could love another man passionately without
ceasing to love her husband, she writes, when

PREFACE

announcing her divorce, "There is no special
reason . . . none at least that is explicable to
the world. As far as I know Richard has no
entanglements, and I have no lover. There
is no shadow of a scandal connected with our
separation beyond that which must inevitably
arise when two middle-aged partners throw
down their cards in the middle of a rubber.
. . . My real reason is so simple and clear
that few will be content to accept it. . . . You
know that Richard and I have got on as well
as two people of opposite sex can do. There
has never been an angry word between us.
But one day the impulse — or whatever you
like to call it — took possession of me that
I must live alone — quite alone, and all to
myself. Call it an absurd idea . . . call it
hysteria — which, perhaps, it is — I must get
right away from everybody and everything.
Joergen Malthe has planned and built a little
villa for me in the belief that it was for some
one else. The house is on an island, the name

PREFACE

of which I will keep to myself for the
present.

In her self-communings, however, she never
disguises the fact that escape from boredom
was the main motive of her returning to the
White Villa.

"Richard is still travelling, and entertains
me scrupulously with accounts of the sights
he sees and his lonely nights. ... As in
the past, he bores me with his interminable
descriptions, and his whole middle-class
outlook. . . ."

Richard's neatness and tidy ways bored her;
his correctness in the convenances; even his
way of eating, and "to watch him eat was a
daily torture."

"Sundays were no better in the Old Market
Place. There I had Richard from morning
till night. To be bored alone is bad; to be
bored in the society of one other person is
much worse. To think that Richard never
noticed it! His incessant talk reminded me

PREFACE

of a mill-wheel, and I felt as though all the
flour were blowing into my eyes."

In another place she says : "I am now sure
that even if the difference in our own age did
not exist, I could never marry Malthe. . . .
I could do foolish, even mean things for the
sake of the one man I loved with all my heart.
. . . But set up a home with Joergen Malthe
— never!"

The terrible part of home-life is that every
piece of furniture in the house forms a link in
the chain which binds two married people
long after love has died out — if indeed it ever
existed. Two human beings — who differ as
much as two human beings always must do —
are forced to adopt the same tastes, the same
outlook. The home is built upon this inces-
sant conflict.

"How often Richard and I gave way to
each other with a consideration masking an
annoyance that rankled more than a violent
quarrel. . . . What a profound contempt I

PREFACE

felt for his tastes and, without saying so, how
he disapproved of mine. No, his home was
not mine, although we lived in it like an ideal
couple. My person for his money — that was
the bargain crudely but truthfully expressed."

Even in her White Villa, on its island with
a forest of her very own, Elsie Lindtner, to
her intense disappointment, was bored. She
lived there with two servants, Torp, the cook
(a delightful figure), who believed in spooks,
and whose teeth chattered when she told ghost
stories; and Jeanne, the mysterious young
housemaid with "amber eyes" and hair that
glowed like red fungi against the snow, who
wore silk stockings, and won Elsie's heart by
admiring and dressing Elsie's own wonderful
hair. Jeanne became the salient interest in
Elsie's hermit life on the island, and was pro-
moted to the intimacy of companion and con-
fidante. It was Jeanne who arranged the

PREFACE

flowers artistically with her "long, pointed
fingers," and picked up her skirts disdainfully
when she passed the flirtatious gardener, to
whose fascinations Torp, the cook, became a
hapless prey. Torp "made herself thin in
collecting fat chickens for him," and he played
cards with her in the basement kitchen.

Jeanne rowed hard in the little white boat
across the lake to catch the last post with
Elsie's fatal invitation to Malthe. "I will
never part with Jeanne," Elsie said as she
watched her. Then she wandered at random
in the woods and fields, and scarcely seemed
to feel the ground under her feet. The flow-
ers smelt so sweet, and she was so deeply
moved.

"How can I sleep? I feel I must stay
awake until my letter is in his hands. . . .
Now it is speeding to him through the quiet
night. The letter yearns towards him as I do
myself. ... I am young again, yes, young,
young! How blue the night is."

PREFACE

But she could not, alas, young as she felt,
get into the white embroidered muslin which
used to become her so well, and Malthe's first
glance told her all.

"He cast down his eyes so that he might not
hurt me again." One reads of tears of blood.
". . . During the few hours he spent in my
house I think we smiled 'smiles of blood.' "

Malthe left the White Villa the same night,
and said at parting, "I feel like the worst of
criminals."

After this shattering blow Elsie in her de-
spair craved for even the boring society of the
husband she had deserted. She was, to use
her own expression, "greedy of Richard's
caresses," and invited him, too, to visit her on
her island. But Richard declined altogether.
He had just become engaged to a girl, "a
mere chit of nineteen."

"He has made a fool of mel I am done
for. Nothing is left to me but to efface my-
self as soon as possible."

PREFACE

Elsie Lindtner's method of effacing herself
for the second time was to quit her desert
island, and take a Cook's tour round the world
with Jeanne.

Thus it happens that we renew acquaint-
ance with her breaking the bank at Monte
Carlo in the first pages of this book to which
she has given her own name, though it might
just as appropriately have been entitled **More
Dangerous Age Reflections." For here,
again, the "transition" is the absorbing topic
of Elsie Lindtner's thoughts and correspond-
ence; one might almost say it is "the bee in
her bonnet." Even when she has emerged
triumphantly, as she boasts afterwards, from
its perils, and has found a new source of in-
terest and happiness in the street arab whom
she has adopted, she seems unable to keep the
subject out of her conversation and letters.
She goes so far as to warn strangers of the
"stealthy footsteps of the approaching years,"
and disputes with her dear friend, the extraor-

PREFACE

dinary widow, Magna Wellmann, which of
them came through those years, "when we are
all more or less mad," with the greatest eclat.
In "Elsie Lindtner" we miss the mise en
scene of the White Villa on the island, with
its forest and lake, for when Elsie re-visits it
with Kelly, it hardly seems the same place,
with no Torp and no gardener. . . . We miss,
too, the first, fine, careless rapture of feminine
revolt which characterises "The Dangerous
Age," and the Jeanne of these pages is not so
vivid as the Jeanne of the former book. In
compensation we have more of Magna, and
we have Lili Rothe's love-letters — which were
addressed but never sent to the man she loved.
Also, as in the previous volume, we have
Elsie Lindtner's letters, with their strange,
pathetic eloquence, marvellously revealing a
woman's complicated soul. Their literary
merit and their value as a picture of life can-
not fail to impress all readers.

Beatrice Marshall.

ELSIE LINDTNER

Elsie Lindtner

Monte Carlo.

DEAR Richard,
Thank you for the money, and for-
give my audacious telegram. I am
directing this letter to your office, as it has
nothing to do with domestic affairs.

You really must help me. We, Jeanne and
I, are stranded here like a pair of adventur-
esses, and don't know what to do. I have
wired to my lawyer, who has simply replied
with an unconditional "No." The creature
seems to think he has the right to manage my
fortune as well as myself. Naturally, I find
it far from pleasant to be obliged to apply to
you, but you are the only person I can think
of to whom I can turn without risking a
refusal.

I have been gambling, winning and losing,

21

ELSIE LINDTNER

finally losing. I am overdrawn, and the last
draft which Riise had the grace to send me is
gone.

Your money kept me going for two hours,
but now that is gone, too. I have pawned the
few valuables I possessed, but I am deter-
mined to win everything back. So please
don't give me good advice; instead, go and
talk to Riise. Explain to him that it is
urgent, and I must have the money. I am
quite indifferent as to what becomes of the
capital. I don't mind paying dearly for this
spree — or whatever you like to call it — and
being poor afterwards in consequence. If the
matter goes awry, you'll hear nothing more of
Elsie Lindtner. I shall neither take poison
nor shoot myself. There is a more comfort-
able way out of it. A Brazilian, whom I
don't like, has lent me a big sum of money.
If I borrow any more of him, it'll have to
come to a bargain. Make Riise sell the stock,
even at a heavy loss, I must have money.

22

ELSIE LINDTNER

Meanwhile send me all you can spare at the
moment by cheque. I hope you continue to
be as happy as ever.
With many thanks in advance,

Yours,
Elsie.

n

Monte Carlo.

DEAR Richard,
A friend in need is a friend indeed.
Accept my thanks for your prompt
and ready help. All the same, I could not
wait till it came, and borrowed again from the
Brazilian. His obnoxious money has brought
me luck. If it had been the other way about
— well, never mind. It was a mad, desperate
plunge on my part. Now that it is over I
cannot understand how I could nerve myself
for it. But I have won. The night before
last I raked in two hundred and fifty thousand
francs besides all that I had lost. After that
I laid down to sleep. Your money has just
arrived. I shall send it back at once with
what you sent me before, and the amount* I
have wrung out of Riise. Jeanne has started
packing.

24

ELSIE LINDTNER

To-morrow we leave here. We are going
for Jeanne's sake. She has taken my gam-
bling too much to heart.

Now, if you possibly can, forget this little
episode. I wasn't completely myself. It's all
over, and too late to repent. We intend to
spend the rest of the winter in Tangiers and
Cairo, and probably in Helvan. Jeanne
wants to go to India, and I have no objection
so long as the journey is not too difficult. At
all events, we shall spend a few weeks in Paris,
just to fit ourselves out stylishly.

It is positively disgraceful of me that I
have forgotten to congratulate you on the
birth of your son and heir. How I should
like to see your paternal countenance — you
might send me a photograph of yourself with
the Crown Prince, and now, farewell, till cir-
cumstances throw us together again.

Elsie.

*
* *

25

ELSIE LINDTNER

How long can things go on like this? We
wander hither and thither, and have no abid-
ing place, as if we were fugitives condemned
to be eternally on the move. And we feign
enjoyment of this perpetual unsettlement.
Jeanne has long ago seen through the pitiable
farce, but she continues to play her part loy-
ally out of gratitude for the small kindness I
have shown her. We get on quite well to-
gether. Jeanne reads in my face when it is
best to speak, and when to be silent.

She is happiest on shore with terra firma
beneath her feet, while I like best the gliding
days and nights on board ship ; the sky above,
the sea beneath me, my brain vacant, and all
my senses lulled to sleep. It reminds me of
the early days on my solitary island, when
every trifling incident was an affair of huge
importance. The flight of a seagull, the top
of a mast above the horizon — a ship sailing
by in the night. We spend the day on our
deck chairs, half dozing over a book, or con-

26

ELSIE LINDTNER

versing in a company voice; but at night we
throw ulsters over our nightgowns and pace
the deck, our natures expanding like flowers
which only shed their perfume after dark.

I have become very fond of Jeanne. Her
poor, withered heart, too early developed, too
soon faded, awakes a certain gentle compas-
sion within me. All my opinions are ac-
cepted by her eagerly as golden rules for the
ordering of life. If only I could forget! ex-
istence might be bearable. But I cannot for-
get. The glance which showed me the corpse
of his love follows me continually everywhere.
The humiliation in that glance! I don't love
him, and I don't hate him. I am getting too
lukewarm to hate. But contempt rankles —
Jeanne is careful to say nothing that can hurt
me, and yet sometimes she hurts me by being
too tactfully silent! I don't want to be pitied,
so we while away hours over our toilette.

How long can it go on?

27

ELSIE LINDTNER

Athens.

Here it is as nice as anywhere else. I
struggle bravely to let myself be enchanted
with Greece's past, but in reality I care as
little about it as I care for the potshares on the
Keramaikos.

We are attending Professor Dorpfeld's
lectures on " The Acropolis," and I am
more interested in the way the man says
things than in concentrating my mind on
what he says. He has made himself so thor-
oughly familiar with the plastic beauty of the
world, that finally the invisible words that fall
from his lips seem to have become plastic,
too. I take no interest in why the pillars are
thickest in the middle. It is the olive groves,
and the lights and shadows flitting over
Athens, that charm and engross me.

Jeanne takes it all in like a gaping-mouthed
schoolgirl; she studies the history of art in the
hotel. I have given her leave to go on an

28

ELSIE LINDTNER

excavating expedition, but without me. I
strongly object to riding through snow up to
my waist, sleeping in tents on the bare ground,
and living on mutton and canned goods. My
laziness is growing.

Luxor.
I am uneasy about Jeanne. She is strung
up to a state of enthusiasm which alienates
me. Is it travelling that has developed her,
or are her hitherto dormant abilities awaken-
ing? We are simply travelling to kill time,
but she takes everything with the same tre-
mendous seriousness as that day in Berlin
when she first heard Beethoven's Ninth Sym-
phony. She regards me as if it were long
ago an accepted fact that we each exist for
ourselves, alone in our separate worlds. She
skips half the meals to roam about among the
temples. To-night we sat on top of the great
pylon and watched the sun go down. For
me it was just like a beautiful decorative

29

ELSIE LINDTNER

effect at the theatre. I couldn't help thinking
of "Aida." She wouldn't come in when I
did, and when I suggested that the night air
was chilly she answered quite snappishly, "I
wish to see the moon illumine the classic sea."
Of course, I left her alone, but I couldn't
sleep, and at about midnight I heard her come
back. My door was open, and I called her
in. She sat down on the end of my bed and
was crying. What can be the matter with
her?

I am not going to torment her with ques-
tions. She shall be free to come and go as
she chooses — so long as she spares me the
paeans of an enthusiasm which I cannot share.
It is all very well here but I prefer myself in
the Paris boulevards, Unter den Linden, and
Bond Street. I feel so poverty-stricken when
I see others full of emotional elan.

Yes, that is it. That is why I am nervous
about Jeanne's enthusiasm for art. She re-
minds me of old days when Malthe, in my

30

ELSIE LINDTNER

yellow room looking over the market-place,
told me of his travels, and I deluded myself
into imagining I understood what he was
talking about. . . .

And so this phase has come to an end, tool
I had quite thought that Jeanne had sold her-
self to me for life. But it was not to be, after
all. I might have prevented it. Perhaps
she was waiting for a word from me. Still,
it is best that we should part. Let her put
her abilities to the test, by all means. She
will soon have had enough of work, and I
am in a position of being able to wait. Now
I shall go to America, and if I find that bores
me, too, God only knows if I shan't give in
and accept the Brazilian. His method of
courtship, at least, is as systematic as a per-
secution. And at bottom I am flattered, that
still — still; but for how much longer? I am
deemed desirable. I ask myself in moments
of doubt whether I should be even that, with-
out the aid of Poiret and Worth.

31

DEAR Jeanne, — Little travelling com-
panion.
So our paths separate — tempora-
rily, or for ever — neither of us can say which.
But I feel that it is best to part, and I am not
at all sad or hurt. Two years is a good long
time for two people to have lived together,
and we have both derived some profit from
those years. For me the profit lies also in
their coming to an end, for you that you have
found life worth living. As I said before, I
strongly advise you to go through the whole
training, which will prove whether you have
creative talent, or your art is merely suited to
commercial purposes. I shouldn't be sur-
prised, indeed, if you became a designer of
buildings — architect is, I suppose, too ambi-
tious a word to apply to a woman — and as
Greek and Egyptian temples are likely to be

32

ELSIE LINDTNER

your speciality, you are hardly destined to be
popular.

Now we have discussed all the practical
points. I think you know that I wish you
absolutely to enjoy your time in Paris. Enjoy
it to the full, but don't commit any irrevocable
follies I

You will get these lines from London,
where I am amusing myself by a short obesity
cure. Imagine us fencing, like small chil-
dren in black satin knickerbockers and white
sweaters! Several ladies from Court .take
part in the "class." Afterwards we have a
brisk but delightful hip-massage, and that
alone makes it worth the trouble. Directly I
am satisfied with the slimness of my exterior,
I start for New York. You were never very
happy over there, but for me that city has a
peculiar fascination. I don't know myself
what it consists in.

I beg you, from my heart, Jeanne, that you
will always consider me as a friend to whom
3 33

ELSIE LINDTNER

you can comfortably tell everything, and come
to for sympathy and advice, whether in sor-
row or happiness. You will, Jeanne, won't
you? and don't neglect your appearance.
Work may absorb you for a time, but that
kind of thing is a transitory craze in a woman
of your disposition. Your heritage is your
appearance, remember.

Good-bye for the present, and "good luck,"
little travelling companion.

Elsie Lindtner.

34

DEAREST Jeanne,
Your last letter — to put it mildly
— is very exaggerated. Frankly, it
is positively hysterical. Why should you
harp to me on your "guilt," or your everlast-
ing gratitude, on your privilege of making
some sacrifice for me. I don't understand a
word of the whole rigmarole, not a single
word. I don't see the point of it in the least.
Here I am perfectly content in my own soli-
tary way, which is not a bit misanthropic, and
my own desire is that you should feel content,
too. Don't you like Paris? You really
needn't be afraid to say so — or is it the work
that you are sick of? If so, it is only what
I have long expected.

According to my opinion, you belong to
those human luxuries whose presence in the
world are quite superfluous, but who have a

35

ELSIE LINDTNER

certain genius through their mere existence
alone of making life more tolerable for others.
Your place is either this, or in the midst of
a grande passion (heaven forbid) in which
you would screw yourself into a bread pellet,
to be held in some one else's mouth. I can
see you like The Princess on the Pea, scorning
everything, or I can see you on your knees
scouring steps for the man you love.

But I should like to see the man you were
able to love.

Perhaps you are in love? That idea has
suddenly occurred to me, though it seems
highly improbable. Now, however, that I
have read through your last nonsensical letter
again, I believe that I have really hit on the
right solution.

You are in love, and out of feelings of mis-
taken gratitude, you do not like to tell mc.
Jeanne, Jeanne! Will you for my sake be
an old maid? It is very sweet of you, but a
little too much to expect. Besides, it is quite

36

ELSIE LINDTNER

unnecessary. 1 am not going to lie, and pre-
tend that it will not cost me something to give
up my little fairy-tale princess with the beau-
tiful hands. Not only my hair, but my
shamefully overcultivated taste is missing
you, with whom I was able to exchange ideas.
An empty place on my balcony that will never
be filled again till the aforesaid maiden sits
in it with the sunlight shining on her and on
the river, and on the town which is the town
of all others.

But, Jeanne, our paths have diverged, and
they can never again unite. You are not in
the least fit to be in my company. You don't
want me, but life, and joyousness. May you
find it, no matter whether, like me, you sell
yourself, and are shut up in a golden cage,
whether you live your own fairy-tale, and
realise the mirage of your dreams, or whether
you develop into an artist. Only with me
you would have no peace.

I noticed how you beat your wings when
37

ELSIE LINDTNER

we were together, how you pined *and tor-
tured yourself to adopt the pose that pleased
me. How for my sake you acted a part.

Instead of writing sheets, I send you these
lines, and entreat you to answer by telegram
so that you may tell me in the fewest possible
words what has happened to you.

I am, God knows, so curious that I should
like to send you a wire a yard long. But I
must rule my spirit so as to take this modern
city of New York.

Your

Elsie.

38

JEANNE, Jeanne, JeanneI
Only that! Thank God, only that.
How infinitely comforting a telegram
with its few concise words can be.

Don't let this matter worry you further.
Of course, I'll take the child to my heart; or
still better, I will adopt the child.

After all, it's much the same to me whether
I have a camera, cacti, or a little child for a
hobby. You needn't be afraid that I shall
plant it in a flower-pot like a cutting, or pin
it into my lace collection. It shall, I promise
you, be properly cared for, not by me, but
through me. I will engage the best nurse
money can procure. If you like, too, I will
sail with the nurse over the whole width of
the Atlantic to receive the little eel in person.
The more I think it over, the more excellent
the plan seems to me. You will have no

39

ELSIE LINDTNER

bother, will not be interrupted in your career,
and I shall add to the long list of my crazes
one more item. To prevent there being any
sort of misunderstanding about it, I am per-
fectly confident that providing for the little
legacy will be a source of new enjoyment to
me.

I only make one condition, and that is,
if the affair becomes too complete I may
be allowed to put "our child" out to
nurse.

It is to be hoped that the father has not won
a fraction of your heart. I can well imagine
that he is some young artist whom you have
met at the class. He gazed at your hair till
he was sick, which is not at all to be wondered
at, and you forgot momentarily that you had
long ago abjured all folly.

Write me more details as to whether you
approve; when "it" is expected, and so on.
I needn't advise you, of course, to leave Paris
before the change in your exterior attracts

40

ELSIE LINDTNER

notice. I am thinking a great deal of you,
Jeanne, little Jeanne.

Your

Elsie.

41

DEAR Magna Wellmann,
And I am the woman who thought
you had forgotten me, or that you
still bore me a grudge for that letter which
I wrote you four — no, it is already five —
years ago.

Now I sit here and ponder whether the
greatest transformation has been worked in
you, or in me. You, at all events, are not the
same, and I believe that I am not. But at
our age, one is long past growing and de-
veloping.

You who of old were like a dry autumn
leaf whirled before the wind, have proved
yourself all at once to have a strength and
courage which make me ashamed. Who has
lulled your senses so to rest? The one
"great" love? No, I will not ask questions,
though a whole host of them pulsate within

42

ELSIE LINDTNER

me. And you are not a bit afraid? You
speak of it as if it were a mere frolic. You
wonderful human creature, Magna. Other
women suflfer intolerably during the nine
months of pregnancy, and grow irritable and
ugly. But you are blooming as if it were the
most perfectly natural condition to be in.
What a contrast to your ordinary mood and
your old escapades. You are not in the least
afraid to bring a child into the world at your
age; and in such circumstances every line of
your letter breathes freshness and health, and
there is no disguising it.

Do you know, your letter awoke in me the
first longing for Denmark since I packed my
boxes and went out into the wide world.

I have become an alien. Five years is not
such a very long time, though long enough to
render a person countryless. Richard in his
pleasant way, keeps me au courant with what
he calls the "main movements" of our circle,
so I know that you have been banned and

43

ELSIE LINDTNER

ostracised. I cannot say that I think it is al-
together undeserved. You know that I insist
on good form outwardly as well as inwardly,
and, really. Magna, I cannot picture myself
behaving as you have done, any more than
I can picture myself going out in society in
a nightdress with my hair hanging down in a
pigtail. But, of course, it is your afifair.

For the most part I take no interest in what
goes on at home. It reminds me too much
of looking at a drop of water through a micro-
scope. If, by any chance, I come across a
Danish newspaper, I read nothing but the
obituaries, and even they do not rouse a
shadow of emotion in my soul.

Yet there are fates which, out of curiosity
or fellow-feeling, appeal to me. And yours is
one of them. When Richard wrote, "Frau
Wellmann's latest makes her 'impossible' in
this part of the world," I could not help
smiling. You made yourself impossible years
ago. It is true. Professor Wellmann's name

44

ELSIE LINDTNER

and social status have sheltered and held a
restraining hand over you, that is to say, up
till now.

But now it has come to an actual scandal.
You parade your shame on the housetops of
Copenhagen, instead of going away and hush-
ing it up.

By the bye, how many small affairs were
there not year after year hushed up in our
set? The dear ladies even were not afraid
to whisper about them to each other. And
you, you even, delight in having a child of
the peculiar kind that we call illegitimate.
Magna, Magna! I am not going to suppose
that behind it all is a spark of malicious joy
in challenging the creme de la creme. That
would be a poor joke. Neither can I be-
lieve that your motive has anything to do
with love for the father of your illegitimate
child.

You write so beautifully about the feeling
that life is growing within you. In this re-

45

ELSIE LINDTNER

spect, I am a stranger, and absolutely blind.
I have never felt the smallest sensation of
longing to feel that life is growing within
me. Perhaps I am even incapable of under-
standing your expression. Yet it touches me.

You were entering on a period of severe
trial for yourself and for the children, and
the time of trial will not end with your con-
finement. There will most certainly have to
be an explanation, and preferably an expla-
nation that will bring as little injury as pos-
sible to the children. Have you thought of
this? Don't put off the inevitable too long,
or others may be before you. The children
cannot — it would be terrible if they could —
understand the whole, so the question is how
to invent a fable which will best lull their
reflection.

Many will judge you because you have
done what is not customary and defied the
usages of society; others will judge you out
of envy, because they have not had the courage

46

ELSIE LINDTNER

to 4o it themselves. Every one who has re-
frained through fear of disgrace and shame,
will hurl a stone at you. Likewise the child-
less women. If I were still in the Old Mar-
ket Place, I should flout you, too. Still, there
are a whole lot of free-thinking human
creatures who will judge you not on account
of the child, but for the children's sake. You
may shrug your shoulders at the others, but
you can't get away from the shadow which
you are casting on the children.

Well, now that I have discoursed to you in
this extremely reasonable manner, I may with
a clear conscience extend my hands across the
ocean and say, "Good luck. Magna."

When the atmosphere becomes too hot to
hold you, then take refuge with me. I live
here, fourteen storeys high, on Riverside
Drive. My name is on the door in char-
acters as small as those on a postage stamp.
It is the fashion here, and the letters are de-
livered to the porter. The house is mag-

47

ELSIE LINDTNER

nificently arranged, and is as light as a studio.
I steadily believe that I shall rest my bones
in some peaceful burial ground here. And
as it's the custom to adorn and paint the dead
till they look twenty or thirty years younger
than when they were alive, you will compre-
hend how that appeals to the vanity of one
who has warded off the burden of age. I
should just like to know how any woman
devoid of vanity could exist in this city of
light and sunshine. I belong to two or three
clubs where ladies of seventy and eighty
congregate, with porcelain complexions,
powdered coiffures, and Gainsborough hats.
Don't imagine for a moment that they
are ludicrous. They possess a dignity and joy
in existence which makes me think that
they must pass their nights in a bath of
youth.

There is a glamour of festivity hanging
over this place. Not in the slums; but there
of course, you needn't go. New York's poor

48

ELSIE LINDTNER

have a totally different aspect and manner of
behaviour from the poor of European cities,
where they rub against travellers with their
sores and crutches. In all these years I have
only seen two human beings who didn't belong
to Fifth Avenue. An Italian and his wife
lay and sunned themselves on the curb and
ate dirty vegetables out of a rusty tin. No
one sent them off, but the whole traffic of the
street gave them a wide berth, as if they had
been a pair of plague-stricken patients.

I ride on horseback every day till I am
dead tired, in a salmon-coloured habit and a
slouch hat over my eyebrows. My master —
a pitiful wreck of a once brilliant Scottish
nobleman — at first objected to my riding en
cavalier. But as I remained obstinate, he
left me to my fate till one fine day he was
seized with admiration for my mastery of the
horse, and now we are good friends. We
ride alternately in Central Park, which is in-
describably lovely when all the beds are

49

ELSIE LINDTNER

aglow with rhododendrons in bloom, and in
New Jersey, which is still unspoilt Nature.
Sundays, as a rule, we form quite a cavalcade,
and then we amuse ourselves like children.
These people who are outwardly stiff and re-
served, and inwardly do not overburden their
souls with super-culture, have a wholly re-
markable and infectious capacity for sucking
honey out of the most trifling banalities of
existence. We chat about the sun, moon and
stars, about our horses, our ravenous appetites,
and 'the recently discovered Rembrandt, and
never about our neighbours. We never back-
bite.

At the end of such a day, when I am rest-
ing after my bath, I seem to myself like a be-
ing with life all before me.

In truth, I have found congenial calm. I
play bridge through the long winter morn-
ings at the Astor Hotel Club, or go to lectures
on psychology, followed by luxurious lunch-
eons during which Madame Homer and

50

ELSIE LINDTNER

Signor Caruso sing to us, not in the intervals,
but while we eat!

The waiters go round pouring out coffee
the whole time, while we sit in a rosy twi-
light. Every one pays every one else little
choice and sincerely-meant compliments.
Call it an empty life, if you like, and I won't
deny that it is.

You ask what I have been doing since I
took flight from my now desolate and dilapi-
dated villa. If I only knew myself I would
tell you. It all seems so long ago I travelled
about with Jeanne, my young housemate and
friend, and we really did nothing but kill
time.

Rumours of my Monte Carlo period have
no doubt penetrated to Denmark. I admit
it was an ugly experience. Never in all my
life had I imagined that I could become the
prey of this passion, but I caught the fever
so badly that I conducted myself as shame-
lessly as the most hardened professional gam-

51

ELSIE LINDTNER

biers. I certainly believe that during those
days I was scarcely responsible. If the tide
of fortune had not turned I should have gam-
bled away every farthing I possess. But
things went so well that I am living to-day on
my winnings, without touching my dividends.

Jeanne is still in Paris, where she has been
for the last two years. She intends to qualify
for some industrial art, for she has an indis-
putable and highly original talent. Lately I
have had a very significant letter from her,
but I may not divulge its contents. If things
turn out, as at present seems likely, my life
may undergo a complete re-arrangement.

I must tell you about my latest craze. I
have had quite a dozen little crazes in this one
year alone. It is a splendid distraction.
Well, my latest is collecting dwarf cacti and
Japanese dwarf trees, which you hardly ever
see in Denmark. They are only a few inches
high, and incredibly old. You buy them in
fat boxes, miniature imitations of Japanese

52

ELSIE LINDTNER

gardens with rivers, bridges, and porcelain
cupolas and tea-houses. They are entrancing.
Fortunately, a gardener tends them; other-
wise they would die of neglect. The care of
plants is no more in my line than the care
of children, or any other live things. If I
had the gift I should have a choice little
aquarium with goldfishes and electric light
and illuminations.

Imagine Richard a paterfamilias and do-
mestic tyrant! Yes, indeed. Magna, every-
thing is changed.

Now, I really have told you all about my-
self. I don't believe there is a single craving
of my soul that I have not disclosed to you.
It's not my fault that the result of these dis-
closures appears so miserably poor. How
old is Jarl now? Sixteen or more? It is a
good thing that Agnete is soon to be married.
Write again soon, Magna. I promise to an-
swer.

Elsie Lindtner.

S3

DEAR Jeanne,
It may be the consequence of your
condition, but really, I am getting
quite concerned about your letters. I
thought everything was settled for good when
I promised to relieve you of responsibility by
taking the child. And now you begin posing
new riddles.

What secret is it that you cannot betray?
Why do you talk about hiding yourself in the
remotest desert? From whom should you
hide? For what reason? Why do you speak
of desecration, and say you wish you could die
before the child is born? You hate to do it
a wrong? What wrong?

Is this man married? If so, his wife
needn't know that you are going to give birth
to a child. You don't want to marry him; or
do you?

54

ELSIE LINDTNER

If I may advise you, Jeanne, I should sug-
gest your leaving the future to take care of
itself, till you are established in peace and
quietness in some pretty neighbourhood.
What do you say to Provence? At the mo-
ment you are nothing but a bundle of nerves,
and I have half a mind to come across and do
what I can to help you. But I am too lazy.
To do anything to help people when it in-
volves trouble, is not my metier; for you,
even, I cannot take trouble, though I love you.

But if there is anything on your mind,
please let me know what it is, for, as I said
before, I am unable to make sense out of the
nonsense you have written. Write as often
and at as great length as you like, and the day
will come, I hope, when I shall at last grasp
your meaning. Is it a human being that is
lacking, one with whom you can really talk?
I am experiencing every day a crowd of little
stupid things, that keep me going in a most
agreeable fashion. But I am chiefly taken up

55

ELSIE LINDTNER

with cherishing and cultivating my own
precious appearance. Altogether, I was
much more alive when we two sat together in
our White Villa on the Island, and saw the
leaves falling from the trees.

Your
Elsie.

*

Jeanne . . . Malthe . . . Jeanne . . . Malthe.

Jeanne and he ... he and Jeanne. . . .

I must try to understand it. Those
two . . .

And, it was the child of these two, their
child, I wanted to adopt . . .

* *

Two days have passed, but I am no nearer
understanding. I go round and round in an
empty circle, and say to myself, "Jeanne and
Malthe — Malthe and Jeanne." And I ex-
pect to be overcome by a heart-rending agony.

56

ELSIE LINDTNER

But so far as I can judge, neither my heart nor
my mind are affected. My nerves, too, are
perfectly composed. I am, in fact, only pet-
rified with astonishment.

Why don't I suffer? What has become of
the love I once felt. Where is it? — or — I un-
derstand those two so exactly. It's myself
that I don't understand. I can give them my
blessing with the easiest and most serene con-
science in the world. I can even rejoice that
these two, just these two, have found each
other so futile; then am I so inexplicably,
egregiously futile?

I have begun to take delight in travelling
by the Subway. People there don't pose.
They are in too great a hurry to put on masks.
Extraordinary how impressive breeding is
when it is united with good clothes. The

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ELSIE LINDTNER

train can be so full that there is often a double
row extending from one end of the car to the
other, hanging on to the round leather rings
with coarse, toil-worn, or delicate kid-gloved
hands. Some one always makes room for me,
but I also take my time to form the desired
expression on my face. To-day a poor
woman sat next to me with two or three little
wreaths on her lap. She wore a dusty mourn-
ing veil thrown over her hair.

She cried the whole way; the veil was so
shabby that I calculated the child must have
died a long time ago. Her grief was still
fresh. Mine has never existed. I had
thought my life at least contained what is
called a great sorrow. But I have only
draped an empty space with the trappings of
sorrow . . .

I must write to Jeanne.

*
.* *

58

DEAR Little Travelling Companion,
This letter might be written in
twenty different ways, but only one is
the right way, and now I begin writing to you
in the same style as I write in my own poor,
dull diary. You know it is only lazy people
who can bear to record the barrenness of their
daily life in a diary.

Accept my warmest and most sincere con-
gratulations, dear Jeanne, and don't shed any
more tears on my account. You have not
transgressed anything, you dear child, with
your refined humanity. Neither has he.
Yet you fancy that your letters — your "confes-
sion," has caused me pain. Oh, no! Alas!
it has done nothing of the kind. I say, alas!
because I should so like to believe myself,
that I had once in my life loved with my
whole heart. Now I see it must have been

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ELSIE LINDTNER

all imagination. It can't be explained other-
wise— a delusion, a myth — anything you like.
Perhaps a charming dream.

Well, the dream is over; that is the only
thing I am certain about. All that remains
of it is the memory of a good friend who,
by a truly magical freak of fate, has found
the one woman, in my opinion, suited to
him.

Jeanne, I am not disguising the facts. This
is the first and the last time, too, for that mat-
ter— that the subject of Malthe and myself is
mentioned between us.

The whole time you and I were knocking
about the world like homeless vagrants, you
never referred to it, or let drop a hint, that
you knew the whole humiliating connection.
Though / knew that you knew, and that raised
you in my esteem as a human creature to an
extraordinary degree. I think so highly of
Malthe that you alone seem to me good
enough for him. So you see what you write

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• ELSIE LINDTNER

about committing a ''robbery" has no point.
And more than that, I can tell you I am one
of those women ill adapted to live with, much
less to love, another human being. I am
quite clear now about this. You, on the con-
trary, in compensation for your joyless youth,
are endowed with the capacity for self-sacri-
fice and yielding. For you it will be a posi-
tive delight to abandon your ego, and let it be
absorbed by his. For me such a thing is in-
conceivable.

There is no necessity to recur any more to
the past — at least as far as I am concerned.
On your behalf we unfortunately have to do
it. Much more than the news itself, does
your question, shall you speak or be silent,
perplex my brain and excite my emotions.

If my position was now what it once was,
and my views of life what they once were, I
should answer decidedly: Keep your lips
closed, and the secret that concerns only you,
locked in your heart! But now there are

6i

ELSIE LINDTNER

other factors to consider. I am changed.
Time and life — I scarcely know what — have
changed me — and you are not like the major-
ity of women, and Malthe is not a man like
other men.

You may perhaps cause him a never-ending
torment by speaking. Be clear on this, or you
may cause yourself no less pain by keeping
silent, and letting what is past and over for
ever be forgotten. I know you, Jeanne;
every day and every hour you will despise
yourself more and more because his belief in
you is so boundless.

You can't be silent. You will be com-
pelled to lie. What to ninety-nine people
out of a hundred would be simple and natural
enough will undermine not only your self-re-
spect, but your joy in life. On the other
hand, you have never loved. The thing you
call your past, has really had no significance
for you. Why should it be unearthed now,
and dragged into the glare of day? Why

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ELSIE LINDTNER

should something that meant nothing but
words to you, be made crucial? Are you two,
you and he, to spend the most beautiful
years of your love in exhuming corpses and
taking them about with you wherever you
go?

Joergen Malthe is not as other men are.
He will never reproach you, but he will
grieve, and you will grieve with him.

You see, I am unable to advise you. Per-
haps I have no right to take the responsibility
upon me. I have often talked by the hour to
your future husband. But as far as I can re-
member, we never touched on the topic of
woman in the abstract. Thus It comes about
that I am ignorant of what Malthe's views
are.

And yet — Malthe is the father of your
child. The father of your unborn child.

Speak, Jeanne, speak openly and without
fear. It will be setting up no defence for hav-
ing yielded to his inclinations, but he will find

^3

ELSIE LINDTNER

in it a means of explaining and defending
what happened before his time; for Joergen
Malthe is not like other men.

If he has thought it right and natural that
the woman he loves should become his in the
way you have become his, he will think it
right and natural that you should have exer-
cised the sovereignty over your person before
you knew him. All you have got to tell him
afterwards is that you love him and that you
have never loved any one but him.

I seem to myself at this moment so very
ancient. Such an eternity lies between then
and now, but that is as it should be.

Little travelling companion with the red
hair, let me see you helping him now in the
prime of his manhood to build up his reputa-
tion, so that his name will become immortal.
You understand how to see — how to enjoy.
Pack your infant when it is born in a little
trunk with perforated lid, and take it about
with you, or leave it behind. Don't let it be

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ELSIE LINDTNER

a hindrance or a barrier between you two in
your joint lives.

There is a great deal more that I should
like to write, but now I must go and dress.
You know "Tristan and Isolde" always was
my favourite opera.

I was going to urge you not to show this let-
ter to Malthe, but, after all, I leave you a free
hand in the matter.

For many reasons I believe that if he saw
it the consequences would not be disastrous.

With many embraces. I wish you a happi-
ness that will last through life.

Your

Elsie Lindtner.

You need not trouble to find me more lace
patterns. I have presented my whole collec-
tion to the Metropolitan Museum. My new
craze, dwarf cacti, amuses me far more — they
can't be enclosed in letters and newspapers
unfortunately.

5 65

ELSIE LINDTNER

When did they first meet? It is no con-
cern of mine, but I can't help thinking much
about it. Did they know each other before?
Yes, of course. He looked after her when
she passed through the room. From me he
looked across at her — and compared. And
after — yes, what after? Did he think con-
tinually of Jeanne as before he thought of me?
Or is it merely because chance has thrown
them together in Paris? Or is it possible that
they did not recognise each other at first, and
only discovered- later where they had met
for the first time? Have I played any part
in their conversation? Have they clasped
hands over my memory, as over a grave?

*

I don't grudge them their happiness.
Jeanne is the right woman for him, and only a
Joergen Malthe could satisfy and supplement
Jeanne's whole nature.

66

ELSIE LINDTNER

How has it come about that everything in
me has gone to rest? I feel like a heap of
faded leaves lying down somewhere in a deep
hollow, where not a breath of wind reaches
it, and it lulls itself to sleep.

I don't live now as I used to live, and I have
no goal to strive for; but I have no cares,
much less do I feel in despair about anything.
Truly, I am very comfortable in mind and
body. I should not mind living for ever this
sort of life. Yet at the same time I should
feel no alarm if some one came and said, "You
must die to-night."

When I consider it in broad daylight, I
have a heap of enjoyments, small and in-
significant, but perfectly unclouded enjoy-
ments.

*

Yes, here 1 am laid up with measles — at
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ELSIE LINDTNER

my age — a fiery rash, and everything else.
Perhaps I shall get whooping-cough next?
It would be much the best plan if one could
have every childish complaint at once and
have done with it. It is boring in this magnifi-
cent carbolic-scented clinic; but the nursing
is good, and it is said to be healthy to be
bored. I always fancied the much spoken
about self-sacrifice nurses to be an old wives'
tale.

In the room next mine, there is the most
passionate little monster of a boy nine months
old, and no one would believe it, but all the
nurses are willing to give up their sorely
needed night's rest for his sake. I, for my
part, wish he was in a hot place.

And then they actually ask me if I wouldn't
like to have him "in my bed for a little."
Heaven protect me and my well-conditioned
intellect! Oh! I pity the poor women who
have several little children at the same time!
I'd like to know how many mothers really

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ELSIE LINDTNER

feel for their children — because it is their
children.

Richard will get it with that wonder of a
child. He boasts about his teeth, but he says
nothing about the pain getting those teeth has
cost him.

* *

Yesterday I had a visit from a convalescent,
who went round paying visits to the patients
who were still lying in bed. I shall make
friends with her. She amuses me. How
well I understood that there can be a certain
charm in studying bacteria and bacilli — small
causes, huge results.

Frankly, I thought at first that she had been
in a reformatory. There was something
about her that gave the impression that she
must have been under restraint. I was quite
prepared that she would confess to having
committed some crime. But no, that wasn't
it.

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ELSIE LINDTNER

She had only been in all innocence a nun
for twenty-two years. Twenty-two years a
nun! Think of it! There were the years,
too, that she was pupil and novice, making
altogether twenty-six years behind the walls
of a convent, subjected to the convent disci-
pline and the weary convent habit. And now
she has broken loose, like a prisoner who
makes a rope of his bedclothes to escape over
walls to freedom.

She had compelled — how, she did not dis-
close— the Church to set her at liberty, and
now was beginning to live her own life for the
first time. The life which she left at sixteen
she has now taken up again at the age of forty-
two. She looks like a person of sixty.

I could not forbear putting the indiscreet
question, why she had broken away? And
she replied, what was evidently the truth, that
when she noticed she was beginning to grow
old, a doubt arose within her as to whether
the life in the world outside was not richer

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ELSIE LINDTNER

than the life behind the convent walls. She
has given all her large fortune to the Church,
and now lives on a scanty allowance grudg-
ingly doled out to her by one of the sisters.

But she is happy as a queen in two little
rooms, where she is her own mistress, able to
eat and drink when she wants to, and as much
as she likes. And she can serve her God un-
bidden by the ding-dong of the chapel bell —
for she has not abjured her faith.

The one desire of her heart now is to find
a man who'll marry her. Her modesty is cer-
tainly touching. She doesn't mind who he is,
or what he looks like, if only she may be
granted the wonderful happiness of having a
husband. I lied my utmost to comfort her.

And if she can't get a husband, she in-
tends to adopt a child.

A really sick, starving, miserable child. I
said tamely, that if I cherished — as God for-
bid that I should — such a fad, I would, at all
events, seek out a healthy, pretty, and well-

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ELSIE LINDTNER

nourished infant. Whereupon she answered,
"I don't want a child to live for my sake; I
want to live for the sake of a child." She is
a fine, but rather queer creature. And she
has promised to come and see me every day.

*
* *

Sister Ethel has bet me a palm — she has ob-
viously an empty tub in her room — that if
once I had the little boy next door with me
for an hour, I should take him to my heart.

I would rather give her the palm straight
off, and have nothing to do with the little boy;
but still, if it gives her any pleasure, well, I'll
have him this afternoon, but directly the hour
is over, clean sheets.

*
* *

To my eternal shame I am bound to confess
that I have lost the palm. It may be that all
the nun's sentimental gabble has affected my

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ELSIE LINDTNER

brain 1 I, who abhor the scent of little chil-
dren, and shudder to touch them.

He lay perfectly still and squinted up at me,
sucking a finger. It was the little finger. I
really shouldn't mind losing another palm,
but my pride, God be praised, prevents my
giving expression to the wish.

He doesn't cry when he is with me. No-
body can understand it. In the night when
he was crying, I, foolish old person, rose from
my bed of measles, and went to look in on him.
I thought the nurse had gone away. It was
rather a painful situation.

73

DEAR Professor Rothe/
Your letter was such a shock to me
that I could not answer it at once. . . .
That is why I sent you the brief telegram in
reply, the words of which I am sorry I must
repeat, "I know nothing about the matter."
Lili has never spoken of it to me, or made the
least allusion which could cause me to suspect
such a thing. I may truthfully say that I
never heard her mention the name of Director
Schlegel. My first idea was that Lili had
gone out of her mind, and I was surprised
that you, a medical man, should not have
come to the same conclusion.

But, after thinking it over for the last two
days, I have changed my opinion. I think
I am beginning to understand what has hap-

^ Extracts from an earlier letter of Elsie Lindtner's to Pro-
fessor Rothe, in "The Dangerous Age," are given here again,
as they throw light on the episode which follows.

74

ELSIE LINDTNER

pened, and I beg you to hold me alone
responsible for what I am going to say.
. . . I am only making suppositions. Lili
has not broken her marriage vows. Any
suspicion of such a thing is out of the ques-
tion, her nature was too upright, too loyal.
. . . If she appeared to you and the world
happy in her married life, it was because
she really was so. I entreat you to believe
this.

Lili, who never told even a conventional
lie, who watched over her children like an
old-fashioned mother, careful of what they
read and what plays they saw — how could
she carry on an intrigue unknown to you
and them? Perfectly impossible, my dear
Professor. I don't say that she didn't
speak the words you heard, but that you
must have put a wrong interpretation on
them.

Not once, but thousands of times, Lili has
talked about you to me. She loved and

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ELSIE LINDTNER

honoured you. You were her ideal man,
husband, and father.

She used literally to become eloquent on
the subject of your operations. . . . She
studied Latin in order that she might under-
stand your scientific books, while, in spite of
her natural repulsion from the sight of such
things, she attended your anatomy classes and
demonstrations.

When Lili said, "I love Schlegel and have
loved him for years," her words did not mean,
"And all that time my love for you was ex-
tinct."

No, Lili cared for Schlegel, and for you,
too. . . . Probably you are saying to your-
self, "A woman must love one man or the
other."

With some show of reason you will argue,
"In leaving my house, at any rate, she proved
that Schlegel alone claimed her aflfection."

Nevertheless I maintain that you are
wrong.

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ELSIE LINDTNER

Lili showed every sign of a sane, well-
balanced nature. Well, her famous serenity
and calmness deceived us all. Behind this
serene exterior was the most feminine of all
feminine qualities — the fanciful imagination
of the visionary. Do you or I know anything
about her first girlish dreams? Have you, in
spite of your happy life together, ever really
understood her innermost soul? Forgive me,
but I do not think you have.

When a man possesses a woman as com-
pletely as you possessed Lili, he thinks him-
self quite safe. You never doubted for a mo-
ment that, having vou, she could wish for
anything else.

You are not only a clever and capable man,
you are kind, and an entertaining companion;
in short, you have many excellent qualities
which Lili exalted to the skies. But your
nature is not very poetical; you are, in fact,
rather prosaic, and only believe what you see.

Contrast this with Lili's immense forbear-
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ELSIE LINDTNER

ancc. You remember how we used to laugh
when she defended some criminal who was
beyond all defence or apology. Something
intense and far-seeing came into her expres-
sion, and her heart, prompted such a line of
argument which reason could not support.
She stood all alone in her sympathy, facing
cold and incredulous people.

Then recollect the pleasure it gave her
to discuss religious and philosophical ques-
tions.

She was not "religious" in the common
acceptation of the word. But she liked to
get at the bottom of things, and to use her
imagination. We others were indifferent or
frankly bored.

And Lili was so gentle she gave way to us.

Recall, too, her passion for flowers. She
felt a physical pang to see cut flowers with
their stalks out of water. Once I saw her
buy up a flower girl's whole stock, because the
poor things wanted water. You and your

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ELSIE LINDTNER

children have no love of flowers. As a doc-
tor, you are inclined to think it unhealthy to
have plants in your rooms; consequently there
were none and Lili never grumbled.

Lili did not care for modern music. Cesar
Franck wearied her, and Wagner gave her
a headache. An old-fashioned harpsichord
would be her favourite instrument, whereas
at home her daughters thundered out Rubin-
stein and Wagner upon a concert grand, and
you, dear Professor, when in a good humour,
strode about the house whistling horribly out
of tune.

Finally, Lili liked quiet, musical speech,
and she was surrounded by people who talked
at the top of their voices.

. . . She was happy because she willed
to be happy. She had made up her mind that
she was the luckiest woman in existence
. . . happy in everything, and she was
deeply grateful to you. But in the depths of
her heart — so deep down that it never rose

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ELSIE LINDTNER

to the surface even as a dream — lay that secret
trouble which has caused the present mis-
chief.

I know nothing of her relations to Schlegel,
but I think I may venture to say that they
were chiefly limited to intercourse of the
soul; . . . and so were fatal. Have you ever
noticed the timbre of Schlegel's voice? He
spoke slowly and so softly; I can quite believe
it attracted your wife in the beginning; and
that afterwards gradually, and almost im-
perceptibly, she gravitated towards him.

The man is now at death's door, and can
never explain what passed between them —
even admitting that there was anything wrong.
As far as I know, Schlegel was infatuated with
a totally dififerent woman. Had he been
really in love with Lili, would he have been
content with a few words and an occasional
pressure of her hand?

Why, then, has Lili left you, and why does
she refuse to give you an explanation? Why

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ELSIE LINDTNER

does she allow you to draw the worst con-
clusions?

I will tell you. Lili is in love with two
men at the same time. Their different per-
sonalities and natures satisfy both sides of her
character. If Schlegel had not fallen from
his horse and broken his back, thereby losing
all his faculties, Lili would have remained
with you and continued to be a model wife
and mother.

In the same way, had you been the victim
of the accident, she would have forgotten all
about Schlegel, and would have lived for you
alone.

. . . Lili had not the strength to fight the
first sharp anguish. The shock bewildered
her, and the love of her imagination seemed
to her at the moment the true one. She felt
she was betraying you, Schlegel, and herself;
and since self-sacrifice had become the law of
her life, she was prepared to renounce every-
thing as a proof of her love.

ELSIE LINDTNER

You, Professor Rothe, have acted very
foolishly. You have done just what any
average conventional man would have done.
Your hurt vanity silenced the voice of your
heart.

You had the choice of thinking two things :
either Lili was mad, or she was responsible
for her actions. You were convinced that
she was sane, and playing you false in cold
blood. . . .

You write that you have only taken your
two elder daughters into your confidence.
How could you have found it in your heart
to do this . . . ?

Lili knew you better than I supposed. She
knew that behind your apparent kindness
there lurked a cold, self-satisfied nature. She
understood that she would be accounted a
stranger and a sinner in your house the mo-
ment you discovered in her a thought or
sentiment that was not subordinate to your
will.

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ELSIE LINDTNER

You have let her go, believing that she had
been playing a pretty part behind your back,
and that I was her confidante, and perhaps
also the instigator of her wicked deeds.

Lili has taken refuge with her children's
old nurse.

How significant! Lili, who had so many
friends, knows by a subtler instinct that none
of them would befriend her in her misfor-
tune. If you, Professor Rothe, were a gen-
erous-hearted man, you would explain to the
chief doctor at the Infirmary Lili's great de-
sire to stay near Schlegel until the end comes.

She loves you, and it would fill her with
grateful joy. ... If Lili had your consent to
be near Schlegel she would certainly not
refuse to come back to her wifely duties as
soon as he was dead. At first she might not
be able to conceal her grief, and then it would
be your task to help her to regain her peace
of mind. . . . Schlegel was a man, but had
he been a portrait or a character in a novel,

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ELSIE LINDTNER

Lili would have fallen in love with him just
the same, because her love was purely of the
imagination.

You must do what you please. But one
thing I wish you to understand. ... If you
are not going to act in the matter I shall act.
I confess openly that I am a selfish woman,
but I am very fond of Lili, and if you abandon
her in this cruel and senseless way I shall
have her to live with me here, and shall do
my best to console her for the loss of an un-
grateful husband, and a pack of stupid, un-
demonstrative children.

One of Lili's tears is worth more than all
your masculine ebulitions of wrath.

One word more before I finish. Lili, so
far as I can remember, is a year older than
I am. Could you not, woman's specialist as
you are, have found some excuse for her in
this fact? Had Lili been fifty-eight or thirty-
five, all this would never have happened. I
do not care for strangers to look into my per-

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ELSIE LINDTNER

sonal affairs, and although you are my cousin's
husband, you are practically a stranger to me.
Nevertheless, I may remind you that women
at our time of life pass through critical mo-
ments, as I know by daily experiences. A
week or two ago it might have been impos-
sible to write a letter such as this. I should
probably have reeled off pages of incoherent
abuse.

Show Lili that your love was not selfish-
ness pure and simple.

With kind regards.

Sincerely yours,

Elsie Lindtner.

85

DEAR Professor Rothe,
Lili has closed her eyes never to
open them again. It will scarcely be
a great blow to you and yours after what has
passed; much more will it be a relief. For
her, indeed, it was so.

I feel it my duty to Lili, not to you, to
write this letter. You may make what use
you please of it. It was I who procured Lili
the sleeping draught, for which she had such
a burning desire. With my hand in hers I
sat beside her till she was cold, and I do not
repent that I had the courage to commit what
you, as a physician, will call a crime.

A few days before she fell asleep Lili en-
trusted a packet of letters to my care. I read
them in the night, and now lay them in the
coffin under her head. These letters were
not to be read by the unauthorised, and you

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ELSIE LINDTNER

have become in relation to Lili one of the un-
authorised.

You have called her's a harlot-nature —
not in a moment of excitement, but because,
after weighty consideration, you arrived at a
conclusion to which the word was appro-
priate. It is not in my power to give you the
satisfaction which you deserve, but I wish
that the hour may come in which you will
see what a desperate wrong you and your
abominable children have done Lili.

Harlot-nature, indeed! You can say that
of Lili to whom you were married for twenty
years — Lili, the purest of beings!

You say, "She married me, she bore me
children, she professed to love me, and all
the time she had a lover behind my back. So
she was of a harlot-nature!"

Professor Rothe, permit me to accompany
you into your most private consulting room,
the room in which you examine the most
modest of your lady patients. Let me have

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ELSIE LINDTNER

it out with you, and inquire into your secret
motives. It is possible that your modesty
will be shocked, but you shall hear what
I have to say on Lili's behalf, and on
those words, "Judge not that ye be not
judged."

When you married her your choice was
made according to the dictates of your heart,
and fell on a very young girl who lived on
the blue heights of idealism. She was your
wife, your friend, the mother of your chil-
dren, the good angel of your home. And
would you dare add that she was your love
also? Yes. You think that because she
loved you, and you loved her, and because you
took her in your arms as your wife, that she
was, of course your love. . . .

But I tell you Lili was never your love, and
that she never had a lover. And the whole
time you have known it perfectly well. An-
swer me, if you like, ''There are thousands
and thousands of women who, like Lili, are

ELSIE LINDTNER

without feeling in this respect . . . still she
loved another, and so deceived me."

Is a rose less red and fragrant, because
there are thousands of other red sweet-
smelling roses?

But Lili's nature was so pure, so refined,
that this deficiency as you would call it, did
not exist for her. She knew what it meant,
for she was not ignorant. She understood in
others what she did not recognise in herself.
She lived for you, her children, and her
household, her own beautiful world, so es-
sential was it for her to shed light and spread
joy around her.

From this arose that wonderful harmony
of her being, making of the non-waking of
what was dormant within her, neither a trial
nor a renunciation. If Lili had been blind
she would have had the same happy nature,
and would have learned the beauty of joyous-
ness through the eyes of every seeing soul.

There never arose within her, as in the case
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ELSIE LINDTNER

of so many poor women, a conscious renuncia-
tion of the fire of the senses.

How infinitely she must have loved and
reverenced you, to have been able to tolerate
without complaint, without abhorrence and a
sense of renunciation, the position of being
your wife for so many years.

Schlegel was not her lover, though she
loved him, and she was more intimate with
him than I thought at first . . . and, listen,
she loved him with unlimited abandon, be-
cause he did not possess a husband's rights to
lord it over her, and did not assume them.
This she was unconscious of. But there ex-
isted a ... a difference between her feelings
for you and for him. He personified all that
she had dreamed in her childish years of
"Love," and continued to personify it till her
last hour.

Once she loved you thus, too, and would
have gone on loving you in the same way if

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ELSIE LINDTNER

you had not desecrated her without awaken-
ing the woman within her.

Lili was the Sleeping Beauty who slum-
bered eternally. No knight ever roused her
from her sleep. But you, the man to whom
she presented her life's happiness, called her
harlot-naturedl

Her last days were given up to a despair-
ing desire for death and pardon for the sin
which she had never committed.

The Lili who came over here was so
changed that I hardly knew her. My first
thought as she touched me and uttered my
name was, "Who is to blame for this?" It
was not only a broken-hearted woman, but a
detested and ill-treated human creature who
flew from the pursuit of her persecutors to
die, deserted, in a foreign land.

The Lili I once knew used to come into a
room as the sunshine penetrates a wood, like
joy itself. Every one could see through her

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ELSIE LINDTNER

radiant exterior right into the floor of her
pure, white soul.

But the Lili who came over here trembled
in every limb and dared not meet the eyes of
anybody. Schlegel lies in his grave. When
he lived I regarded him as indifferently as
I should any stranger. Now my thoughts go
out to him full of thankfulness.

And Lili came home to you and ate the
bread of humiliation for four long years in
your house, while people admired you because
you had pardoned her so magnanimously.
Your abominable children looked down on
their mother and behaved to her as to one not
responsible for her actions. Dancing went
on in your house, Professor Rothe, and
Lili sat upstairs alone in her room. Be-
trothal festivities were celebrated by your
family, while the mistress of the house was
said to be ill, so that her pale, grief-stricken
face should not cast a shadow on the festive
scene.

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ELSIE LINDTNER

I did the little I could, all that was in my
power to win back the old, dear Lili, but it
was too late. One cannot say that her mind
was under a cloud, but she brooded day and
night over a problem which she could not
solve. Mostly she sat looking down on her
hands, which were never still. Sometimes she
talked of the children. She had once over-
heard Edmee say to one of the maids, it would
be much better if mother were sent to an in-
stitution. Those words she could never for-
get.

Professor Rothe! Time after time un-
happy women have come to you to be consoled,
and helped by your explaining to them that
the dangerous years of transition may affect
the brain of even the steadiest and most nor-
mal of women.

You could treat others with consideration
and give them shrewd and kind advice. But
for Lili's dangerous period you did not con-
cern yourself. You allowed fate to shatter

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ELSIE LINDTNER

her beautiful existence. You never stretched
out a hand to protect her. For Lili's sake
I cannot help hoping that there is a resur-
rection after death, a place "where nothing
is dishonoured, where all is love." To such
a place Lili belongs. I have chosen a grave
for her, looking south, where flowers will
flourish, and have done it in my name.

To-morrow, I shall send you the necessary
business details — a death certificate referring
to heart disease — even if I have to write it
myself.

I have opened the window. The river is
as blue as it used to be at home in light nights.
Here it is the moon that makes it blue. If
only I had the power I would lay Lili in a
boat and let her drift out to sea.

Elsie Lindtner.

94

LETTERS FROM LILI ROTHE TO
THE MAN SHE LOVED

I HAVE accumulated so many letters from
you. To-day another has come — a let-
ter from you to me I
Thus I know that you still think of me.
And it does me good to know it. I go about
thinking of you always and always, and it
makes me happy. I want nothing different
and nothing else but to be allowed to love
you.

The letter ... in my hand, in my posses-
sion . . . you, who understand what it is to
love, will know how it is when one loves.
Every trifling thing becomes a heaven and an
earth.

The letter in my hand . . . that means
holding minutes of your time. Time is life.
So I possess a bit of your life. For you the

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ELSIE LINDTNER

minutes have vanished, like raindrops sunk
in the ground; for me they have imperishable
qualities; they are like seeds that send up
shoots and more shoots, to be nourished by the
sun and moisture of my love.

And what was there in the letter? I am
not ashamed to answer, only word after word,
like footprint after footprint on a muddy
path. The written sheets contain hardly
more than the blank ones. But I did not ex-
pect that they would, how could I expect it?

For you I am simply one among many.
No, perhaps a little more, a tiny bit more.
You said the first time we were alone to-
gether ... not to me . . . that my nature
was congenial to you. That meant you liked
to be in my neighbourhood — my poor little
neighbourhood. I feel such pity for myself
when we are together. It is like being two
people, one of whom has to do and say the
very opposite of what the other would like to
say and do. . . . Only when I go away from

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ELSIE LINDTNER

you and your glance follows me like a living
shadow, that doesn't belong to me, I feel
frightened and ashamed as a child. I am
nervous about my walk, my figure, my move-
ments, lest they should jar on you, and then
I try to appear nonchalant. I talk and
laugh, and am two people at once, one of
whom watches the gaucheries of the other
with sad eyes; the other who is quite at sea
how she shall act to please you. And that is
I myself, I, who in every one else's society, feel
as free as the pollen of the buttercups as it flies
over the fields. I talk on and on as if I must
fill space with my words, fearful that the em-
barrassment of silence will turn my features
to stone, fearful, too, of discovering a glint
of boredom in your glance. Your glance!
It is like a dark, slowly flowing river that
bears your soul towards me.

When you look at me, a new world is born
within and around me. It is as on that day

when the Lord said, "Let there be light, and

7 97

ELSIE LINDTNER

there was light." Your glance has divided
me inwardly into light and darkness, which
are a greater contrast than night and sun.

Your glance penetrates every drop of blood
in my veins, as the sunshine soaks into the
sleeping earth, and awakes to life its slum-
bering powers.

I know when your glance is resting on me
like a tired hand on the arm of a chair.
When you contemplate me without seeing
me, because you are thinking of those cares
which I divine, though I know nothing about
them, something cries out within me, not
from one place but from a thousand. Then
warm founts of pity and grief overflow my
inward being.

But don't be afraid, my friend, that I shall
speak of what I suspect. If you would
rather no one should know, I will be silent —
like a flower at evening I will close my eyes,
compelled by the darkness in which you en-
velop yourself.

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ELSIE LINDTNER

And I will go on seeming to understand
nothing, nothing at all. But your mouth, be-
loved, your mouth, and your dear, beautiful
hands betray you.

There is a quiver and trembling round the
corners of your mouth as if the unspoken
words lay there in ambush — and your hands
look so helpless.

Your hands, whose grasp can be so majes-
tically firm and strong, hang limply down,
but you are not aware of it. At times your
hands appear to me so full of "sin, sorrow,
and peril," that I feel as if my soul were
responsible for yours.

I talk to you like this, beloved, because you
will never know. There are other days when
your glance, as you look at me, is like a blue
flower that blossoms in the sacred garden of
dreams, but only because you are happy in
yourself, only because of that. You have
had some pleasant experience, or built up
some new hope. ... I think, then, that you

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ELSIE LINDTNER

have derived strength from the glance that is
life to you, as yours is my own life's fountain.

At those times your glance flashes towards
me, and a smile comes and goes on your lips.
It comes from the foundation of your being,
and is astonished at itself. At those times
your figure is upright and elastic, and if you
walk across a room you move with a rhythm
that touches me like a song.

But, beloved . . . you have yet another, a
third look . . . and this I recall when it
grows dark. I fear it the most and love it
the most. It's when you realise I am a
woman . . . suddenly, as if a mask fell from
my face, you realise that I am a woman, and
hot only a woman, but a woman meant for
you. And the smile that then encloses me
like a snare has not its origin in your con-
sciousness and knowledge of my love, but its
origin is in me because I am a woman. And
then, of course, because in the kindness of
your heart you are glad to give me the pleas-

lOO

ELSIE LINDTNER

ure of remembering that I am a woman, your
eyes fill with a misty twilight, and into this
twilight I sink as into an everlasting night.

I feel your arm supporting my neck, your
cheek's melancholy pressure. Shuddering
we stand leaning against each other, like two
pines of the forest, that for a short space a
hurricane of storm wind has flung together
only to separate them again.

All the time your smile is cold and medita-
tive, and your glance is extinguished like a
lamp that has consumed its last drop of oil.
My poor heart tells me the reason — you are
wondering at yourself for giving way to a
mood which means so little to you.

But when, saddened, I try to move away,
you again offer me your mouth as a friendly
almsgiving. . . . The letter, the barren letter
I hold it to my heart. I leave my house and
go into the deepest part of the wood till I find
a place solitary enough to lie down in. The
letter has filled me with a joy that resembles

lOI

ELSIE LINDTNER

the pungent fragrance of the pine needles car-
peting the ground.

I open my letter, contemplate the two un-
written sides, and read once more the written
sheets. ... I begin a deliberate juggle with
the words; I transpose them over and over
again, read each letter separately, as if there
were some sweet secret hidden in each, and
a caress in every stroke of the pen. I can't
help thinking there must be somewhere be-
tween the lines one single little word all for
myself, that concerns me only.

Yet my joy goes down with the sun; the
leaves cease to glow, and the darkness gathers
in, and I sit with nothing but despondency in
•my lap.

Beloved, beloved! how kind you are!

I have lain awake all night with these
words ringing in my head like a song through
the darkness. How kind you are!

You gave me a whole evening. Don't deny
it, for you know I collect all the minutes that

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ELSIE LINDTNER

you can spare from your superfluity. I glean
them together, as Ruth gleaned wheat on
Boaz's fertile acres. I hadn't dared to hope;
not dared, you must believe me. I left the
house alone with thoughts about you, but
without the slightest shadow of a hope of see-
ing you. Then when I asked you implor-
ingly, "Come to the meeting," you shook your
head and answered, "I can't manage it."

But while I made my way through the
lighted, busy streets, my heart became sud-
denly so heavy that I felt I couldn't go on.
Yet I dragged myself there.

Many people greeted me, and said they
were glad to see me. ... I stood in the
centre of a little group. Then all at once I
felt your presence. I heard you coming . . .
your step ... it seemed as if you walked
straight up to my very heart's door.

Smiling, you held out your hand to me . . .
that alone was enough to gild my evening, but
you stayed, with me, stayed with me. We sat

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ELSIE LINDTNER

together, we two. The whole evening we sat
together. While others discussed what they
had come together to discuss, I sat apart and
let myself be enthralled by a happiness which
was almost more than I could bear.

Several times you leaned close to me to
whisper something, and we both laughed and
chatted about the others.

You are very fond of me as a friend with
whom you can talk or be silent at your pleas-
ure. If I were to cease to exist one day, you
would — if only for a few minutes — feel the
loss. Therefore I know that my life has not
been lived in vain.

So, gradually, I have gained ground, step
by step, and I don't worry you. That is true,
is it not? I don't worry you? Rather than be
a burden to you I would give up the joy that
lies for me in seeing you now and then, and
being sometimes where you are. It is that 1
long for nothing else, but to be allowed to
love you.

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ELSIE LINDTNER

Sometimes when my thoughts soar to the
cloudy pinnacles of bliss I have asked myself,
what if the impossible were to happen, if you
were to love me I

The clouds float on high, but when they
are heavy with the moisture of earth, they
weep till they are light again, and their tears
water into fruitfulness the woods and mead-
ows, while they themselves sail on yonder
through the chill ether.

The clouds aspire to reach the height of
the stars as my thoughts aspire to your love.
But they know perfectly well that they are
striving after the unattainable.

And when my thoughts have tarried a
while up there in the sky, they become
weighed down with depression and float
softly earthwards, where they properly be-
long, and my heart itself drops like an anchor
into the deep, quiet waters of sorrow.

But why do I talk of sorrow, I who am the

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ELSIE LINDTNER

happiest of the happy? ... I didn't mean
it, no, I didn't mean it in the least.

But if the impossible were to happen, the
impossible ...

If it could happen that you would love me?
If your glance told me so just once.

I know what I should do — yes, I know. I
should shut my eyes on that glance, so as
never to let it go from me. I should leave
my home, and my children, and go away. I
should take leave of life, and fall asleep
quietly, oh, so quietly, never to awake.

The darkness of the grave would have to
be round me, so that not a sound disturbed
my happiness.

To live and know that you loved me I I
could not do it. My strength would be lack-
ing. I can only love.

Henry said one day, "Don't touch any of
my little bottles." I was staring at them so
hard. Each of the little bottles contained
the peace of the grave. But I must go on

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ELSIE LINDTNER

living for the sake of my little children, for
Henry's sake. And why should I not go on
living? I have no reason to v^ish to do other-
wise. Yet I am not with them, though in
their midst. When I move about in my
rooms, when I talk to the children and Henry,
I am not there. My eyes are seeking him,
my ears strain after him. . . .

From the first moment we met, my beloved,
you and I^I became a stranger amongst my
own people. But no one knows it, except
myself. And I feel that if I was bound by a
thousand ties, I should break them all, where
you, my love, were concerned.

I am so very much of a dreamer that it is
difficult for me to write distinctly just what
the relations are between us. Other thoughts
perpetually throng upon me, and I have to
strive hard not to pervert things or fabricate.
And you will understand that I have not a jot
or tittle of desire to fabricate. . . .

You must know how poor I am, in spite of
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ELSIE LINDTNER

my having home and family, and how rich,
on the contrary, you make me, so that eternally
I must love you. You must be told every-
thing. You must be told how very well I
know you don't care whether you are told or
not, but I write not for your sake, but for the
sake of my own love . . . You are so un-
speakably good and kind. . . .

There was another evening, the evening of
the fete. I asked you to give me a moment,
one little moment for me alone, and in the
middle of the revel and music we sat down
in a corner together, at a little table. One
gets distinct in calculating when the means are
so sparingly few.

I seated myself at an angle, from which I
could, to my heart's content, and eye's satis-
faction, gaze right into your soul without any
one seeing what I was doing.

You, you looked at me as if you were glad
at my joy. You talked of all sorts of things.

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ELSIE LINDTNER

But every word that you let fall with a con-
fidential emphasis as if it were between you
and me alone, was like pure gold — a treasure
to be added to my heart.

Not for long were we allowed to sit to-
gether undisturbed. Other people came up
to us and jokingly teased us. They said that
we too obviously sought each other's com-
pany. How stupid of them to say that, when
it is only I who seek yours. And yet — don't
be vexed with me — I liked them to say it. So
I do.

And then it was that we came to discuss
goodness, and I said so that every one could
hear, that you were the best and finest of all
the men I knew. My own husband stood
near and smiled. He was so sure of me. . . .
You, as well as the others, declared that there
were men who might compare favourably
with you. I could not bear to hear that.
Softly in an undertone, I begged you to con-

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ELSIE LINDTNER

fess that you were the best, and you whis-
pered, using *'thou" for the first time, 'Tor
thee I am best."

But it is not true that you are only best
for me. You are wonderfully good — your
whole manner of life bears witness to it.
Every one knows it, and every one knows that
you suffer. No one can protect you from its
being common knowledge that you have suf-
fered deeply. Your heart lies in ruins. I
ought to learn from you to forget myself, and
never to speak of love which to you can never
mean anything again. But I don't speak in
words.

It was that evening you clasped me close
to you, not because you loved me, but because
you were so kind. While your lips sought
mine I asked, "Then it is true that you love
me a little?" and you answered in your in-
finite goodness, "Yes, it is true, you are very,
very dear to me."

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ELSIE LINDTNER

But suppose I had then said, "Dq you love
me?" and you in your infinite goodness had
replied, "Yes, I love you." What then?
What then?

I dread the moment when I shall put this
question to you. It lies in the womb of the
future, waiting to reveal itself. May I have
the power granted me never to speak, but if I
do speak, may I understand absolutely that
your answer is prompted by infinite goodness
alone. Yet between us there is something
that is all yours and mine. Something
greater than love, for love aims at a goal, and
sooner or later comes to a standstill. But that
which exists between you and me revolves on
and on like a silent star in its own distant
sphere. Nobody and nothing can check its
progress.

... I am not exigent. Your love will, I
know, never be my possession. I don't expect
it, and don't wish it. It is my greatest happi-

III

ELSIE LINDTNER

ness that I have met you too late to be one of
the many who have passed out of your heart
into the cold, and everlasting yearning.

To-day is my birthday, and each one is
emulating the other to give me pleasure.
The rooms are crammed with flowers and
presents. Yet I am not joyous, and the whole
affair seems very childish. How should you
be able to remember that to-day is my birth-
day? You who know such heaps of people!

You will come to-night! I did not tell you
intentionally that it was my birthday. . . .
Perhaps because I hoped that you yourself
would recollect the date. Last year I met
you in the street on my birthday, and you told
me that it was the anniversary of your father's
death, and then I said that it was my birthday.
You asked if you might send me some flowers,
and I said no. How could I have explained
it, receiving flowers from you who had never

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ELSIE LINDTNER

been in our house. And now this evening
you are coming! I

At first you did not wish to come, and it
was sweet of you not to wish it. But as you
don't — don't love me there is no reason why
you should mind meeting my husband.

You are coming this evening. You are
coming I Every time the bell rings my heart
begins to beat faster, and every time I am dis-
appointed. It is like standing in a bril-
liantly lighted room that becomes suddenly
dark.

Once I received flowers from you which I
never thanked you for. You know nothing
about these flowers. Shall I tell you their
story? But you mustn't laugh.

I always feel happy when I think of them.
It is almost as if the flowers were standing
again in the window, and I lying in my hyp-
notic sleep, unable to open my eyes but know-
ing all the time that your yellow orchids,
trembling like a swarm of golden butterflies
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ELSIE LINDTNER

on their delicate stalks were standing there in
the window. I don't suppose you gave a
thought to whether they would reach me be-
fore or after the operation. Perhaps you
merely rang up a florist on the telephone and
ordered something specially beautiful to be
sent to the Nursing Home on one or other of
the days. And I am modest with good rea-
son about questioning you.

I was in bed. No one was with me. The
doctor had just been here and — as he consid-
ered his duty — explained for me, what my
dear Henry had been so carefully keep-
ing from me, that it was a matter of
life and death. He had very little hope.
But I was not afraid. I lay there and
thought of you, of Henry and the children,
and then again of you. I thought of how I
had told you that I had to undergo that severe
operation. I was bound to tell you — then, in
case I died, I had to say good-bye to you.

You tried to turn it off with a joke, but in
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ELSIE LINDTNER

a few minutes you grew grave. You asked
if I was nervous, and I begged you, if mat-
ters did not go well, to visit my grave, just
once. Only once. It was very childish of
me, but you did not laugh. You merely said,
"To satisfy you I will promise, but I know
you will live to visit my grave. . . ."

I have the power when I like, of bringing
you before me in the flesh, so very much in the
flesh, that I at times can hardly bear other
people to be in the room. I want to be alone
with you. After I came out of the operating
theatre, I was alone with you every evening
and every night.

I talked to you, I talked . . . and you were
silent. I never was able to put many words
into your mouth. But your attentive eyes
rested on me . . . and you were there.

When the doctor had gone, I lay by myself
for a long time. The nurse supposed natu-
rally that I needed rest after my conversation
with the doctor. I thought of you. I was so

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ELSIE LINDTNER

curiously restless, a sort of joyous, expectant
restlessness. I kept looking at the door, as if
every minute I should see you coming in.

I didn't really expect you. I knew, of
course, that it was impossible, for many rea-
sons. It would not occur to you to call on
me. You might easily imagine that visits so
shortly before the operation would not be per-
mitted. There had been flowers in my room,
sent by my friends, and many of Henry's pa-
tients.

But they had been taken away, because I
must not be excited by their scent. I lay
there and gazed at the door; my heart began
to beat violently — no, not exactly to beat, but
it felt as if something was entering it. You
must not think, beloved, that I imagined all
this afterwards. I felt — I could feel dis-
tinctly that some great joy was on its way to
me. I heard the footsteps approaching in my
heart, and then I heard them outside on the
stairs. Nurses and visitors were coming and

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ELSIE LINDTNER

going all day on the stairs, but, nevertheless,
I sat up in bed pressing my hand on my heart,
for I knew, I knew, that this concerned you.

My nurse came in with a parcel. It
seemed as if she, too, understood that this was
something which I ought to see at once. She
came quite close up to me with the box and,
smiling, opened it deliberately, so deliberately
that it looked as if she were teasing me. . . .
"Let me open it," I begged, but no, she in-
sisted on doing it herself.

I felt how the blood deserted my face. . . .
"Give them to me!" I implored as if I were
praying for my life. She handed me the
long spray from which the flowers hung like
gold sunbeams, and fluttered over the white-
ness of the sheet. I held the spray in my
hand.

When she was gone, I kissed every one of
the sensitive flowers. And you were with me.
All your steadfast calm was infused into my
blood. Now I could die happy. The

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ELSIE LINDTNER

flowers were put in water and placed in the
window. They were to stay there all night,
I said, and no one objected. I had a light
burning the whole night through, as if I were
afraid of the dark. I dozed and woke, and
dozed and woke. The flowers did not sleep,
and they did not fly away.

You, you were with me!

Even if you never thought of me at all that
night you were still with me. And, maybe,
you dreamed of me. Men often dream of
things that they haven't been thinking about.
And you forgot your dream before you awoke.

The next morning when they came to fetch
me, I besought so earnestly that my orchids
might stand beside the bed. I submitted
calmly to the anaesthetic. While the mask was
being drawn over my face I thought of you,
and it seemed as if the yellow, dewy petals
began to dance over me.

Deeply I breathed in the fragrance, and I
felt as if the flowers filled the room. They

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ELSIE LINDTNER

had increased from a swarm to countless
swarms, and become a singing ocean of gold.
And in the ocean I saw your eyes. You were
with me, even if in thought you did not ac-
company me, yet you were there.

I woke up and my gaze met yours. My
eyes were too tired to see much. Yet I saw
the yellow flowers swaying on their stalks.
They had come back. They had, with their
loving souls, borne me company at the time,
and now they had come back. Close to my
eyes they seemed to be perpetually singing
and making music. Yes, you were with me.

When the pain was most acute it was just as
if they flew away, and dispersed at the sound
of my groans. I quite understood it. They
were like you. You, too, hate the thought of
sickness. You, too, cannot bear people to be
ill. So I tried to smile at them, and to act
as if I did not feel the pain.

. . . Your flowers . , . your exquisite,
blessed flowers . . .

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ELSIE LINDTNER

fTo-day is my birthday, and you are com-
ing, yet I am not happy.

All my best friends are coming. I shall sit
at the same table as you I You will sit on my
right hand, for you are the only one who
comes for the first time. It is not wrong, it
cannot be wrong. But if it is wrong, then
punish me, let me suffer for it; I am ready.

I said that I must rest before the guests ar-
rive. I must be alone for a little to collect
myself for the joy that is greater than joy.

For my joy is more than bliss. There is
nothing so great, there cannot be anything
greater than my joy.

The flowers are risen from the dead. The
yellow butterfly blossoms.

I almost wish it was over. I don't know
myself what it is, but I wish it was over.

That, I wish over, and I don't know what
it is. I see something beyond the barrier,

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ELSIE LINDTNER

and I don't see it. It is not death, but there
is something that hurts more than death.

And the evening was the happiest of my
life.

Perhaps it is nothing at all. Perhaps it
is only my heart breaking for happiness, but
can it hurt so much when one's heart breaks
for happiness?

It was at the moment when you went out
at the door. Magna Wellmann turned her
head and said, "That was the evening of the
year," and you nodded. Then was it. It
felt as if all my joy had suddenly been
hemmed up in a coffin and couldn't breathe.
Henry asked, "Are you ill, you look so
strange, and you have been beaming the
whole evening as if you had light inside
you. . . ." That was true. I had light, yes,
light burning within me, and now it is ex-
tinguished.

I must gather myself together. I must
cherish and hoard m.y happy evening. It is

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ELSIE LINDTNER

wrong to think such things, but I am glad that
Henry had to read the treatise this evening.
I mean . . .

You led me to the table. You sat on my
right, and you were so calm. You are always
so calm. Why should you not be calm, you
are not in love.

You invited me to drink, and I who never
drink wine, drank with you, only a sip. It
was ... no, I cannot speak of it. But now
I understand that clergymen really believe it
when they say, "This is the body and blood of
Christ."

No one could read my thoughts.

Now I know what it is that I have lacked
hitherto, and I am glad that I have lacked it.

You made a speech in my honour. It was
so natural that you should. You led me to
the table, and it was my birthday. For me it
was a sacred miracle. The words you spoke
have gone to sleep in my heart. When I die

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ELSIE LINDTNER

one day in my coffin, and my children weep
over me, they will arise and whisper and sing
as your yellow flowers sang when I was ill.

I hold so fast to my happiness. But my
hands are weak, and it slips through them
like running sand.

The hours go as they came.

Why do you rend my dream in twain?
Why do you thrust a knife in my heart? I
have never thought of being your mistress. I
only grant you every delight there is. But why
in this night, in this night, when I woke and
clung to my happiness! When Magna Well-
mann telephoned me to-day, I knew every-
thing. She said nothing and I asked no
questions.

My yellow orchids hang on their stalks like
dead butterflies. I have forgotten to give
them water.

Forgive me I I am not. I won't be like
this, and now it is over. It hurts no longer.
I am well, like the little boy who was run

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ELSIE LINDTNER

over the day before yesterday. He cried and
moaned that he was going to die, and all the
time was quite unhurt.

You walked over my heart, and I thought
it must die, but there is nothing the matter
with it.

It is months since I wrote to you last; I
simply felt I couldn't. I have been like one
scared. Why do people speak so often without
thinking? One lets fall a word quite indif-
ferently, that stabs the heart of another like a
poisoned arrow. I have been half distracted
by anxiety. I have listened to all the gossip.
I am sick from disquietude. My youngest
child has been ill, days and nights. I have
watched beside him, expecting every hour that
death would come, and yet in the middle of
my fear of death my thoughts have been in-
cessantly with you.

I wouldn't believe it. . . . But if it is true.
. . . Beloved, I am so saddened, I don't know

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ELSIE LINDTNER

whether I ought to tell you why, or whether
you would tolerate my intruding into the
habits of your daily life. But I am not only
depressed, for if that was all I could bear it
in silence. No, I am frightened, frightened,
frightened. I cannot sleep for anxiety.

You wrote last year to tell me yourself that
your doctor had forbidden you to resort to
the strong remedy which had become a neces-
sity to you ; that you were obeying, but suffer-
ing horrible pain in consequence. That first
awakened my anxiety. Many, many times I
felt as if I were running my head against the
blank wall which separates life from death.
. . . And yet, it seemed to me that there was
strength in the touch of your hands, strength
that could grapple with any illness, strength
in your hands, your glance, your smile. Then
one day something happened that it took
weeks to get out of my head. I sat with you
and between us was built the usual bridge of
kindness and confidence. Your smile came

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ELSIE LINDTNER

over the bridge and met mine. We played
with words as children in a meadow play with
flowers. Your hand lay on mine so firmly and
tenderly. I grasped at that moment why men
honour so much the idea of a foundation stone.
I felt my hand, too, was the corner-stone in
an eternal building. So proud was I that
your hand rested on mine, so sure, firmly and
tenderly, and then suddenly, with such ter-
rible suddenness, that my heart nearly stopped
beating, your smile froze and died; your eyes
became vacant, glazed; your face was not only
strange — would it had only been that — it was
so changed that you wouldn't have recognised
it yourself in the looking-glass.

In that moment — I can't say whether they
were moments or minutes — you were not mas-
ter of your body, neither were you ruler of
your soul. And then you came to yourself.
But I left you and cried. My tears were cold
and made me freeze. Soon after I had to go
away on a journey. Beloved, beloved, how

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ELSIE LINDTNER

full of pain love is I Every day, every hour
when I strolled in the garden among my
flowers which I planted there myself, which
stand there mysteriously waiting and watch-
ing for your coming, I saw before me a
shadow that proceeded from my own dis-
traught mind . . . your dear face with the
relaxed expression, and the glazed, fixed
eye.

The pain which I experienced then has been
carried about in my heart for years, and was
day by day increased and nourished by my
anxiety.

But then your letters came, like stars drop-
ping from the sky in the still, dark night . . .
and once more I gained strength and courage
to look life in the face. Life — that is what
you are for me.

I could fancy every one dying round me,
even my own darling children, all that was
near and dear to me; all that peoples the earth,
and I could fancy the houses falling, day and

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ELSIE LINDTNER

night ceasing — but I cannot picture life with-
out you.

I cannot, and I will not. ...

The summer passed, and with the falling
leaves I returned to your neighbourhood.
You were, to all appearances the same, only
rather paler, rather softer in your manner.
Your hands were the same, your lips sought
mine. I asked you no questions. Dare any
one call to the man walking on a rope over
the abyss, whether he feels giddy? I asked
you nothing. But others talked about you to
me. And all, all said the same. Don't you
see how changed he is? And they spoke of
the strong remedy that had become indispen-
sable to you, of the remedy by the help of
which you maintain your mask of mental
equilibrium, a mask through whose holes your
own tormented soul stares out into vacancy.

Now I have come to it. I have come to
it. Please do not be angry, or hurt, but let

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ELSIE LINDTNER

me say what I can no longer carry about with
me unsaid. Try if you cannot, slowly and by
degrees, break yourself of the habit of resort-
ing to means which, instead of strengthening,
undermine your health. In the name of my
love I ask you to do this, and you must not
think that I ask for my sake alone. Then if it
happened that I was going to die, and knew
that I was going to die to-day, so that I should
never see you, or hear your voice again, I
should still make the same request. Why will
you be kind to every one but to yourself? A
doctor said to me about you — No, those are
words that may not be repeated. . . .

Now say with a smile that I am conjuring
up bogies, that my feelings have got the bet-
ter of me, and perhaps you are right, but,
beloved, death is not the worst. Do you un-
derstand me now?

I sit here and write in the bright sunshine.
My children play round my skirts, and chat-
ter and ask me why I am crying. . . .
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ELSIE LINDTNER

Well, now it is said, and now that I have
said it, I dare not let you read what I have
written.

But I will keep this letter with the rest of
your letters, with the letters which you have
never received. Should the day ever come
when I have sufficient courage you shall read
it.

Only this one, of all the letters.

130

AN UNSENT LETTER FROM LILI
ROTHE TO PROFESSOR ROTHE.

HENRY, I had on my mind to write to
you and, for the last time, ask you to
forgive me, but I know that it
is no use. Perhaps your forgiveness could
do me no good now. It is too late. I have
suffered so much. I cannot bear more. But
this letter contains nothing but the truth, and
it is the last letter that I shall write.

Henry, I have never denied my love for
you. I have never forgotten you, and never
deceived you. If I am to die now, because
I long for the sleep, which while I live, can-
not mercifully be granted to me, you must
believe my poor last words.

I don't know whither I am going, but even
if I knew for certain that I should reach the
open gates of Paradise, I could not cross the

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ELSIE LINDTNER

threshold. So long as you had not forgiven
me in your heart, eternal peace would not en-
compass me. And if I knew, he for whose
sake I have caused you such great trouble that
it casts a shadow behind and dims all that was
once radiant and happy, if I knew that he was
standing ready to receive me with those words
which up till this hour I have never heard
him utter, "Welcome, my beloved," it would
be impossible for me to follow him into ever-
lasting bliss.. Consciousness of guilt would
prevent it.

In the years when I loved you alone, I
was happy; when he came into my life and I
loved you both, my happiness increased with
my love, and I did not feel guilty. I was so
unspeakably happy. I loved you, and I loved
him. You are a doctor, and when women
are ill you can make them well, but for
my sickness you had no panacea to pre-
scribe.

And I cannot do what you desire of me;
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ELSIE LINDTNER

I cannot say that my love for him is dead.
Love cannot die, when once it has lived.

Henry, when you took me back, I entreated
you to ask me no questions, and you asked
none. But your eyes asked and the wails
asked, and everything round me asked ques-
tions. I do not wish to have any more secrets
from you. Yet you never can understand
what I am now going to say.

He did not know me when I came to him,
and he died without having recognised me.
But it made me happy to be with him. When
the others were asleep, and it was all quiet, I
heard him mention a name. Not my name.
He did not love me, you see. Every time he
mentioned that other name I felt I was expiat-
ing some of my guilt towards you. I sat
and listened, the nights were so long, but my
name never came. The name of the one he
loved, the names of others, but mine never.

One night I fell asleep and dreamed that
he called me. I awoke, and he lay dead.

ELSIE LINDTNER

And now I shall never find out whether that
was only a dream or something more.

I have thought so much over the question
whether other women are the same as I am.
Were I strong enough I would go about and
look till I found one who could tell me truth-
fully that she had loved two men, loved both
with her whole heart and soul. I would then
beg her to go to you and explain how that
is something one cannot help, cannot fight
against, and cannot kill.

134

MY nun has espoused a husband, and I
have been to call on the young cou-
ple. He has only one eye, is super-
annuated, and has warts in his ears. He is a
hod carrier. When she contemplates him she
feels as if heaven were opening before her.

She comes from a good family, and has had
a good education; he is ignorant and stupid,
but he seems to appreciate her adoration. I
had a ticket for "Lohengrin" this evening, but
I am not inclined to go.

After all, I can understand it. Once I
should have thought it silly, but my ideas have
undergone a change. When I reflect on it
there is really only one condition that can be
called unhappy, and that is loneliness. Lone-
liness on a desert island, loneliness in a great
city, loneliness in married life. . . . Loneli-
ness.

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ELSIE LINDTNER

For this reason all living beings crowd to-
gether. The animals seek each other. The
faded leaves, as they flutter down from the
trees, wed in the hour of their destruction.

She feels that she has been cheated for all
the years of her convent life, has loved with-
out an object. She has cast off her shackles,
and achieved her liberty. The thought of a
joint life with some one, that she may have
pined for vaguely in the convent, became, out
in the world, the highest thing to aim at. In
her excessive modesty she humbly accepted
the first thing that offered. Surely there is
nothing ridiculous in that.

But I am alone. I am solitary.

God in. heaven, what have I done? There
he lies asleep, as if he were never going to
wake. Such a little gnome. But I couldn't
do anything else, and behind all my anxiety
and fidgetting I have a feeling that for the

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ELSIE LINDTNER

first time in my life I have done what is right.

For it was not unpremeditated, or was it?
Do I know? A transformation has been go-
ing on lately within me. But when did it
begin, and where will it lead me? If I only
had some one whom I could consult, but there
is no one. I have broken all my old ties. I
stand quite alone. Even Jeanne. . . . Jeanne
must be told as soon as possible, but, of course,
she will think it is nothing except one of my
whims in which I indulge to kill time.

When I ask myself deep down in my heart
why I did it, there is no answer, and, mean-
while, the boy is lying in my bed. I have
slept an hour or two here on this chair with-
out knowing it. The windows are wide open,
yet every minute I inhale a horrible smell of
spirits ... a little boy of seven! How am I
to know whether he is seven, five, or nine?

I must collect myself. This hour may de-
cide the whole course of my life. I have only
to hold the telephone receiver to my ear, and

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ELSIE LINDTNER

directly the house-porter will call in the po-
lice. Before noon the boy will be gone, and
I shall never see him again.

Why should it concern me? It would be
sheer folly if I gave way to a sickly sentimen-
tality and wished to keep this small tramp.
Small as he is, he seems to be endowed with
every vice.

I feel as if I had dreamed it all, and not
seen it with my eyes. . . . And it all comes of
my freak of using the subway under the river
instead of taking a motor. What induced me
to waste time in that fashioh? I who, of all
others, detest subterranean zigzagging?

Was it a presentment? Did I expect a sen-
sation, and wish to gloat over the sight of
roofless night-wanderers, who for five cents
travel backwards and forwards by this route
all day? One's way of living and thinking
is different in New York from what it is in

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ELSIE LINDTNER

great European capitals. We don't follow
each other like sheep. We think more for
ourselves.

I felt so tired inwardly on the journey, so
utterly without an anchor. I tried to fall
asleep before we reached the river to escape
hearing the ghastly rushing sound in the air
behind. The boy had seen me at once. I be-
lieve I inspired him with a certain awe. My
clothes probably were too smart for him.

He hurled himself past me without calling
out rude words, or making grimaces. I could
not take my eyes off him. At first I thought
it was one of the dwarfs out of the Hippo-
drome, and I squirmed with disgust. Then
I saw that it was a child. A child sick with
a fever which his senses could not master. I,
like the other passengers, thought him mad,
till we grasped what was the matter with
him.

He jumped on ladies' laps, and spat in their
faces; he kicked gentlemen's legs violently

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ELSIE LINDTNER

with his heels. When the guard caught hold
of his wrists and commanded him to be quiet,
he bit the man so hard he was obliged to let
him go. At the next station he was ejected.
But directly the train was in motion again, he
swung himself on to the car, and this process
was repeated at every station. No one knew
how to cope with him ; no one knew where he
came from, or to whom he belonged. Sud-
denly he began to sing, what, I couldn't under-
stand, but from the expression on the faces of
the men present, and from his own gestures,
I gathered that it was something indecent.

How shall I describe my feelings? Were
they prompted by horror, repulsion, or com-
passion? I must try to analyse them clearly.
... I felt as if I had brought this wretched
creature into the world, as if I were respon-
sible for him. I experienced a mother's
agony and a mother's boundless tenderness.

Directly it became plain to me that the
child was not speaking in the delirium of

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ELSIE LINDTNER

fever, but of drunkenness, I had to bite my
lips till they bled, so as not to cry out. Then
the boy came to me, and threw himself across
my lap. There he stayed, nestling his head
against me, and went to sleep.

* *

Were I to act now sensibly and as common
reason demanded, I should send the child
back whence he came, though I don't know in
the least where that is. . . . The child who
has awakened the most sacred feeling in my
poor, withered heart. . . . The child who is
to blame for my having shed, for the first time
in my life, tears of joy.

When I offered to take Jeanne's child, I
had my reasons at my fingers' ends, but they
were not honourable ones. I wanted to start
for myself an interest in life. I started from
the hypothesis that what filled the lives of so
many women might equally well fill mine. I
wanted to take Jeanne's child, in the same way

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ELSIE LINDTNER

as five years before I had taken her ... as
an experiment, a distraction.

But it was not so to-night. This small boy
had kissed my hands, and I had blessed him.

I have heard somewhere of a holy man who
met once a little child who was tired. He
lifted him on to his shoulders and carried him
over a river, but on the way the child grew
and became heavier and heavier, while the
man sank deeper and deeper . . . All that,
however, doesn't matter.

I took him home with me. Here you can
do what you like. My proceeding excited no
remark. A stranger asked if he should fetch
me a carriage, and we drove home.

I must, of course, make inquiries about his
antecedents. He says nothing himself. He
woke up when I struck a light, but he wouldn't
tell me his name even. The people in the
train thought he was one of those outcast chil-
dren without parents who live from hand to
mouth by selling newspapers, and stealing

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ELSIE LINDTNER

from the banana carts, and who pass the night
on the river's bank or in empty wagons.

I haven't succeeded yet in getting his boots
off. Though they have evidently once be-
longed to a grown-up, they are so tightly laced
on his little legs that they can only be moved
by cutting. He must have worn them day
and night for months.

*
* *

What will be the end of it? I daren't
think, and I daren't act. I keep saying to my-
self without ceasing, the same thing, "Sup-
pose he is taken away from me?" and I seem
to see into the future, his life ending in crime,
his death taking place in prison.

I intend to sacrifice my own life for this
child's . . . but is that sufficient? Can that
avert his fate?

My beautiful, beautiful boyi He is asleep.
I have locked both doors and sit with the key
in my pocket. Every quarter of an hour I

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ELSIE LINDTNER

look in at him ; he smiles in his sleep as only
innocent children smile. Then suddenly he
clenches his little fists and his mouth becomes
so distorted and ugly that I have to turn away.
What can he be dreaming about?

Help me, help I To whom am I praying?
I, who am without faith, and without hope.
But I am not without love. No longer with-
out love ; for I love this poor, miserable child.

Could I but give him back his innocence!
. . . Has he never been innocent like other
children? Was he contaminated from the
first by the two creatures who gave him life?
Is it in my power to atone for others' sins
against him?

I wonder why he tried to run away to-day?
Where did he want to go, and what was in his
mind? If I had not got him back, God
knows, I could not have faced another day.

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ELSIE LINDTNER

I sat with him on my lap, and he looked up
at me as if he would ask, "What are you going
to do with me?"

His childish gaze was so suspicious and
hard. I told him that I wanted to be his
mother and to live for nothing else but to
make him happy. All the time his little
hands were feeling about to find my pocket.
I pretended not to see, and smiling angelic-
ally, he plunged his hand after my purse, and
began to fidget with it till it opened. My
heart beat so that I could hear it distinctly
resound in my ears.

Is it to be wondered at that he steals? He
has known what it is to starve. But now I
give him everything that heart can desire. I
have bought him a little purse of his own, and
filled it with money. Yet still his tiny face
retains its expression of desperate greed when
he sees me take out money. When will this
alter?

And he asks me if I have bought him. Or
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ELSIE LINDTNER

have been given money to keep him. He
does not remember that blessed, thousand-
fold blessed, night when he took my heart by
storm, and transformed me into a real human
being. . . .

I wanted to test him, so to-day I went with-
out lunch, explaining to him that I had no
more money, but he was to eat, I could go
without it. He nodded, and without trou-
bling about me at all, ate up his lunch.

Kelly. That's his name. Kelly! or he
says it's his name. He has been with me now
for six days, and only to-day he told me what
he was called. Well, it is at least a begin-
ning. I am thankful for little.

I dare not hesitate any longer. If I could,
I would travel ofif with him like a thief with
his booty, even if somewhere a mother sat and
wept for him. No, no! I wouldn't rob a
mother of her child. But I needn't be afraid.

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ELSIE LINDTNER

Kelly's whole bearing tells me that he has
been for a long, long time alone in the world.
Enquiries will be only a matter of form, and
then I can adopt him properly. He will be
mine .by law.

* *

It is quite a matter of indifference to me if
people shake their heads at my insane action.
How should they know that Kelly alone, only
this boy with the vicious little face and crim-
inal glance is the source of all my bliss and
riches in this life? But it distresses me when
people talk about it in his presence, and I
cannot prevent them shaking their heads.
Kelly understands what they mean. He seems
conscious that his brow is branded with the
mark of Cain.

*

* *

To-morrow we are going to the Children's
Court; I have written to Mr. Rander. He

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ELSIE LINDTNER

is said to be one of the cleverest child-psychol-
ogists in America.

He has replied that I need cherish no fears.
So long as my love is sufficiently great . . .
my love. . . . Yes, my love is great enough
to bear the strain.

*

Why had that to happen just to-day, when
I was feeling in such good heart? It's only a
trifle, certainly. He may not have thought
what he was doing.

It's a necessity of children's nature to be de-
structive. They are cruel without being con-
scious of it. What, after all, do I care about
the stupid cacti? I would have made him a
present of all of them. But it was the glance
of his! The sly, uncanny glance when I said,
"But, Kelly, why have you cut my flowers in
pieces?"

*
* *

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ELSIE LINDTNER

I am doing it entirely on my own respon-
sibility. I should do it, even if the whole
world cried out, **Leave it alone, it will prove
your ruin 1" I should do it. Even if I could
see into the future, and behold my boy a full-
fledged criminal sentenced to death. ... I
consecrate my life to him, my poor, squan-
dered life. But it isn't poor now. I am rich.
I am a mother!

*

Mr. Rander meant well, I daresay, when he
said, "Don't do it. Take any of them, only
not himl" And he related what he knew.

As if a single spoken phrase could dissolve
the bond my heart has entered into volun-
tarily.

"Born, double-dyed criminal.'* Neverthe-
less, I will educate myself to be a worthy
mother to him.

149

DEAR Magna Wellmann,
"From earth thou comest, to earth
thou shalt return. . . ." These words
of Scripture occurred to me when I read your
letter. That is the eternal circle . . . in this
case the circle of your family. Your grand-
father was a renegade from the calling of his
forefathers when he became a townsman.
Your father degenerated, and now you have
gone back to the land.

Magna, Magna, I admire you. Of course,
I am heart and soul for the enterprise. In
this manner my money will become a breath-
ing, living entity, doing its own work, and
reaping its own reward. Don't talk about be-
ing cautious. I am running no risks. I
know what I am about. Your lawyer's letter
informs me in business language that the un-
dertaking is "sound," besides I am not giving
the whole or even half the capital.

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ELSIE LINDTNER

I need no assurances that you will carry the
thing through. But read before you begin
a little book by Flaubert. I don't mind bet-
ting you have never heard of it. It is called,
"Bouvard et Pecuchet." A prospective
agriculturist can learn a good deal from it.
It's splendid that Jarl is so keen on farming.
But you won't surely let him put his hand to
the plough, and work in the fields from the
start, will you? The boy is only seventeen,
and I hope, too, that his mother isn't going
to begin at once digging turnips and milking
cows. I should not care to set foot in a cow-
shed— it's a thing I have never done. But
all the same I shall enjoy having letters yards
long about all your first experiments and
blunders.

You mustn't take it too much to heart that
Agnete is cool towards you. The poor child
has a dash of prudishness in her, inherited
from her mother I When she has children of
her own she will be different.

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ELSIE LINDTNER

Your account of the scandal was rich! Es-
pecially do I like that remark of a friend,
"She might at least have had the tact to say
that it was an adopted child." I read be-
tween the lines that you have not passed
through this humiliation without it's having
left scars behind. But, Magna, nothing is in
vain. You can afford to pay the cost of your
happiness. I am reminded of a little story
about you which used to be told in our "set."
It related to the way in which you conquered
Professor Wellmann's heart. You were at a
party, and had been so bored you had spoken
to no one. There was something to drink in
big, tall glasses. Suddenly in an ebullition
of superfluous strength you bit the glass with
your teeth and bit a piece out of it. Profes-
sor Wellmann sat with distended eyes and
open mouth, and watched you.

And on his way out of the house he re-
marked to a not very discreet friend, "She, the
girl who bit the glass, shall be my wife!"

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ELSIE LINDTNER

The story may or may not be true, but it
is characteristic of you all the same.

I can see you in hobnail boots, and a smock,
tramping over the fields, superintending the
plough and' the breeding of cattle.

I have very little to tell about myself.
Since I linked my fate to Kelly's I live in a
new world. Every day that goes by I come
nearer to myself, but I cannot write about it.
It is too sacred a subject. Troubles which
were unknown to me before have taken up
their continued abode within me, but joys
which were equally strange keep watch over
me with drawn swords. Magna, I ask you,
can the woman who has brought her own
child into the world experience greater bliss
and greater torment than I, to whom my boy
was given by chance?

With a thousand loving remembrances,
Your

Elsie Lindtner.

153

The White Villa.

DEAR Jeanne,
As you will see from this heading,
we are now at home again.
We, and at home again!
My home is where Kelly is, and Denmark
was never his home. But for his sake, I have
uprooted once more. I did not think such
a big, big town was good for him. The is-
land here is certainly small enough.

Oh, if you could see how it looks now! I
was determined to be the first with Kelly to
enter the house, since you and I left it to-
gether, how many years ago?

The carpets were in tatters. The window
panes were beaten in, either by the wind or
vagabonds. Dead leaves and dead flies lay
about the floors. My beautiful pieces of
furniture were mildewed from damp . . .

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ELSIE LINDTNER

one or two of the chairs had collapsed; the
chintz coverings were moth-eaten. My bed-
room— my ridiculous bedroom — was the most
deplorable of all. It must have been struck
by lightning, otherwise I don't understand
how the mirrors got smashed, and the rain and
snow lay congealed on my bed.

Kelly laughed, and rushed from room to
room, and in the end I laughed, too. Then
Kelly got hold of the mad idea that instead of
putting up at the inn, we should turn in here
the first night. I half think he contemplated
a sort of burglarious attempt on the deserted
house. I yielded, of course. Never in my
life have I seen any one more industrious and
handy than this boy when he likes. He ran
about pumping water and sweeping floors,
and made all straight, God knows how. Tea
was prepared! ante-diluvian sugar and a can-
ister of Albert biscuits. He ushered me into
the large parlour where my piano, my poor,
wretched, beautiful piano, had been standing

155

ELSIE LINDTNER

all these years, the prey of wind and rain, till
it hasn't a sound left in its body from
hoarseness — and then he brought in the tea.
I won't go so far as to say that it tasted clean
or nice, and the biscuits were musty, but
Kelly's hand had prepared it.

And we slept together in the same bed, in
your bed, Jeanne, in yours! It was the only
one in which the blankets were dry. I
wanted to lie on a sofa with a rug, but Kelly
would cuddle up beside me.

Jeanne, I — really I, your fond, old travel-
ling companion, am now once more "at
home," and I lay awake the whole night
thinking over my happiness.

Kelly slept in my arm, and my arm, of
course, went to sleep, but no other part of me
slept . . . and Kelly woke with my arm
round him.

Then we went to ''The Jug," and put up
there for a fortnight till the whole place was
made habitable. I have no Jeanne — I do my

156

ELSIE LINDTNER

own hair, and make myself beautiful for my
boy. Alack! it is hard work to inspire him
with any desire to make himself presentable.

I am thinking of finding a tutor for him.
He ought not to be allowed to run wild and
devour sensational American novelettes — of
which there are none in Denmark — and re-
main ignorant of all other subjects.

Forgive me, Jeanne, but I have only one
thought, and that is Kelly. He fills my life
at all points, so that everything else now has
to give way to him.

He has a craze for collecting snails and
slugs, which he brings into the house and lets
crawl about on the white window-sills. I
must own it makes a horrible mess, but Kelly
may do anything. Only I draw the line at
helping him to collect his snails, for, much
as I should like to oblige him, it is too dis-
gusting.

Now in exchange for these confidences, tell
me all your news. It was indeed a piece of

157

ELSIE LINDTNER

good fortune that Malthe's design took the
prize. And in Paris, tool You will, I sup-
pose, stay there the two years. Or are you
still the incorrigible nomads who prefer to
travel about with your houses on your backs,
with your trunks and perambulator — to
settling down quietly in a refined, comfort-
able home. Don't work yourself to shreds,
Jeanne. Remember that life is long, and that
you mustn't grow old and ugly. I concluded
that you are doing everything in your power
fairly to spoil your excellent husband. You
go to market. You pack the boxes, take the
tickets, and accompany your husband to the
museums where you make drawings for him,
and you look after the children. Jeanne!
Jeanne! take thought for your hair, and be
careful of your hands.

And don't forget your happy Aom^-flown
friend,

Elsie Lindtner.

158

ELSIE LINDTNER

Dear Good Magna,

That this notion should have occurred to
you, and that you should have the courage to
carry it out — . But ought I to offer up this
sacrifice to you, and can I relinquish Kelly?
The last few nights have been long and sleep-
less; only when dawn begins to glimmer can
I bring my confused thoughts into any order,
and then it seems as if I had found a solution
which is the right one. I fall asleep, and
when I wake up again, everything is as un-
settled as ever.

I don't know my way in or out. Magna,
it's not selfishness which makes me dread let-
ting Kelly out of my hands — the day does not
seem far off when I shall be forced to live un-
der another roof from that which shelters him,
and that is why I don't want to die.

My every thought is dedicated to him for
whom and with whom I now live, and so I
will continue to live without complaint so

159

ELSIE LINDTNER

long as life is granted me. I have looked it
all in the face, and have recoiled, shuddering,
at the petrifying horror of impossibilities, but
I have made my resolve. So long as I in-
habit the earth Kelly has a human being who
stands in the place of mother to him.

I am not afraid to make any sacrifices. I
shrink only from the thought of shirking the
responsibility. From the day Kelly came
into my life I have made myself answerable
for his actions and conduct. Would it not be
cowardice and treachery if I now said, "The
yoke has become too burdensome, now I will
shunt it on to the shoulders of another"?

And yet, Magna, your plan seems to me the
one possibility of salvation.

Before I express my hearty thanks, and con-
fide my boy to your care, I must tell you some-
thing which I have been compelled to keep to
myself till now. Kelly has before been taken
care of by others. By force of circumstances.
He tried — remember he was only nine years

1 60

ELSIE LINDTNER

old — to burn me. Of course no one sus-
pected him, otherwise the police would
not have been asked to investigate the affair,
but then it was brought to light, and he was
taken away from me. I could have mur-
dered them for taking him. ... It is hard,
even now, years after, to talk about it. My
one idea was to find a means of getting him
back. In America everything possible is
done to save children whose feet are set on
the downward path to crime. And it is done
with a tenderness and love which is marvel-
lous, but I didn't know it. I thought of what
I had read in the papers at home about re-
formatories for children, about floggings and
starvation, and lockings-up in dark cellars.
I was ready to help Kelly to escape till the
first time that they gave me permission to visit
him.

There was no wall round the institution,
not even a railing. The main building
abutted on the high road, and from there you
" i6i

ELSIE LINDTNER

could see the heaps of smaller red houses re-
sembling a town of villas.

As I came up to the inspector's dwelling, I
was almost run down by a crowd of boys
headed by a small negro, who were having a
race.

Just as I entered the door, I heard an out-
cry which made my heart stand still. I
thought it was one of the boys being punished.
But the inspector showed me from the win-
dow what the noise meant. The boys were
playing at fire, and at that moment they were
letting the hose play on the inspector's house.
My little Kelly — in oilskins and a helmet on
his head — held the hose.

And I was told that of the six hundred boys
who are in the reformatory many of them on
account of gross misconduct, for which but
for their tender years, they would have been
sentenced to a long period of imprisonment,
not a single one had been guilty of doing any-
thing wrong during his detention here. Pun-

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ELSIE LINDTNER

ishments such as thrashing and being put on
bread and water and under arrest, simply do
not exist. The boys live in their little villas,
twelve in a batch, under the supervision of
a pair of foster-parents. The only punish-
ment is that a boy who has been disobedient or
lazy gets no cake at five o'clock tea, and is not
given permission to sit with the others at the
large flower-decked table, but has to sit alone
at a small table. And he mayn't lie before
the fire at dusk and listen to fairy-tales.

No mother could have had more delight-
ful letters from her child than I had from
Kelly during that year. If I had only been
as wise then as I am now, I should have let
him stay there as long as the inspector would
have kept him.

All the small "prisoners" were taught in
succession various industries which they
might choose themselves. I saw them bak-
ing, ironing, washing, carving, carpentering,
binding books, making clothes, and toys, and

ELSIE LINDTNER

I saw them planting trees, ploughing, and.
Magna, I saw them milking cows. But I was
a foolish mother. I didn't want my boy
brought up to a trade ; I imagined it was my
duty to develop his great gifts in a different
direction.

So after a year he was sent back to me.
But the inspector warned me that there would
be a lapse. In two months it came. Kelly
disappeared. I tore about like a maniac hunt-
ing for him everywhere. I don't believe
there was a beer-cellar, a common lodging-
house, or a thieves' kitchen that I didn't
search. He was traced through the scar on
his forehead, and I recovered him. But
how?

The Kelly who for twelve months had been
living a model life among six hundred little
abandoned chaps, had plotted with a group
of homeless playmates to commit a crime so
diabolical and remorseless that at first I re-
fused to believe his brain could have hatched

164

ELSIE LINDTNER

it. By the train between Philadelphia and
New York travels every day a crowd of mil-
lionaires who come to do their business on the
Stock Exchange. The other boys were,
through all sorts of tricks, to distract the at-
tention of the signalman while Kelly was to
switch on the signals so that another train
would come into collision with the train from
Philadelphia. After the collision they meant
to plunder the dead bodies!

It's true, Magna; now say, no! you dare not
take Kelly under your roof to associate with
Oluf. I can't help it, it was my duty to tell
you all. My friend. Judge Rander, in Chil-
dren's Court, helped me in every way. He
procured for me leave to travel with Kelly
out of the country on a verbal and written
oath that I would never bring him back.
That is why I lived two years, summer and
winter, in my White Villa with Kelly and a
tutor. I was afraid to let him come near the
town, and yet the child needed companions.

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ELSIE LINDTNER

So at last I ventured to migrate to a town,
with the result that Kelly in two years w^as ex-
pelled from three schools. Can you still have
the courage, Magna, to let the innocent child,
offspring of your heart, become Kelly's play-
fellow? And if you are so courageous, how
shall I be able to exonerate myself if you
come to me one day and say, "Kelly has cor-
rupted my boy"?

I put the words into your mouth, Magna.

Say no, while there is still time. You are
strong, stronger than any other woman I
know, since you have found yourself again
through strenuous exertion and labour. But
there are powers that the strongest cannot con-
quer.

Behind my fears about your saying yes, lies
the burning wish that you will, but how shall
I ever find words to thank you?

Of course, I realise what it will mean if
Kelly from now onwards takes up his abode
with you, and directly after his confirma-

i66

ELSIE LINDTNER

tion leaves off school. It's not what Kelly is
to be, but how he becomes what he is, that is
going to be for me the main question. I fold
my hands in my lap, and I confess my power-
lessness.

Make Kelly a man. Make Kelly a good
man.

You will understand. Magna, that I could
not say all this if we stood face to face.
While I have been writing Kelly has been
several times to the door. He wants to know
what I am doing. Every time I feel tempted
to lay down my pen to enjoy his society. He
asked me the other day, "Mother, do you be-
lieve that people's fate is pre-ordained?"
What could he have meant by it? I dared
not ask him. He went on his knees, buried
his head in my lap, and cried bitterly.

Magna, don't keep me long in uncertainty.
At least promise me that.

Your

Elsie Lindtner.
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ELSIE LINDTNER

I have begun to darn Kelly's stockings.
Why did I never think of it before?

He w^as w^hitewashing the attic with
Magna, and I saw that one of his stockings
was without a heel. I actually blushed, I
felt so ashamed. The boy, of course, doesn't
trouble about such trifles, and Magna, splen-
did creature, has enough to do. I don't be-
lieve she would mind a bit going about with
holes in her own stockings.

In the country it doesn't matter so much,
but still —

She simply laughed at me when I asked to
be allowed to look after his clothes, and I
didn't quite know how to explain why I
wanted to do it. But Magna is so clever, and
when I was seated comfortably she brought
me out a whole bundle. She has done the
same for her own children. I am convinced
that she would not let any one else darn Oluf's
stockings.

I don't find it easy. I have quite forgotten
1 68

ELSIE LINDTNER

the proper way of doing it, which I learnt at
school. And I haven't thought anything
about darning stockings since.

But I take no end of trouble, and it is a
wonderful feeling to sit out here on the
balcony with a whole pile of big, big stock-
ings in front of me — Kelly has positively a
gigantic foot. My dear little balcony. It's
to me what an airship is for young, impatient
folks. I sit so serenely in my charming, soft
seat, between sweet-peas and nasturtiums, and
beneath me streams by the current of life with
its men and beasts.

It amuses me to see how skilfully Richard's
eldest can drive an automobile. If only he
can avoid accidents.

Richard himself is aging, but his little

wife sits so upright in the car. She wears

well.

Since Richard caught sight of me one day
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ELSIE LINDTNER

by chance he always looks up and bows, and
then we all bow, ... I overhear the lanky
youth say, "Papa, we are passing your old
wife," and then they laugh.

Yes, I should like to see the home in the old
Market Place once more. Probably I should
hardly recognise it, or perhaps Richard, from
long habit, has kept things much the same.

The eldest son is to succeed to the business,
of course, but the second looks to me so dandi-
fied. I know this for certain that none of
Richard's sons will ever work out in the fields
in clogs and woollen shirts. And their
mother will never have the joy of darning
stockings with holes in them as big as goose's
eggs. While I sit with a pair of these coarse,
huge, manly socks in which my hand is abso-
lutely drowned, I feel to the full extent a
mother's glorious rights. I only wish the
holes were double the size, so that the time
they take to mend lasted longer.

I have been and bought the pan for cook-
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ELSIE LINDTNER

ing oxeyes in, and I have promised Kelly and
Oluf that every time they come they shall
have oxeyes baked in butter. Magna
requires nothing but her horrid nut-suet which
has no flavour. She alone can cat it. Dear,
dear boys.

Dear Agnete,

It was well that you wrote to me this time,
and not to your mother. You are not to
trouble her with your unhappy affairs, do you
understand? Every time that she gets a letter
from you she shuts herself up and cries.
Lately I have read quite a number of your
letters, and I must confess that I was not
pleased with them.

At one time you presumed to sit in judg-
ment on your mother's life, and now you
blame her because yours is a failure. You
have no right to do it.

You cannot justly lay your married wretch-
edness at either your mother's or your hus-

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ELSIE LINDTNER

band's door. Its origin is to be sought in a
train of circumstances. You must know,
though you seem to have forgotten it, that it
was not your mother who gave in to your de-
sire to go to the French Convent School. It
was my doing that you went. I sent you for
her peace of mind's sake.

That you have married a Catholic while
you yourself are a Protestant is no one's fault
but your own, as you did not ask anybody's
permission. Unfortunately you have inher-
ited from your mother a hysterical tempera-
ment, and from your father a certain matter-
of-factness which prevents your enjoying life.

I feel compelled to act like a surgeon who
undertakes a necessary operation, in spite of
the patient's objection to scars.

The only time your husband was here on a
visit I was able to get a certain impression of
his character. You are right in saying that
he is "dangerous to women through the animal
magnetism which radiates from his person, at-

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ELSIE LINDTNER

tracting to him adults and children alike."
And you might add, "through his natural
amiability and his kindliness." He makes no
disguise of his vanity, but when you plume
yourself on being his only chick because you
alone resist him, you are adopting a dangerous
line. The man who wishes to be worshipped
will not be discouraged by superior airs,
especially when these are put on, and you
merely feign opposition in order to annoy
him, and to conceal how much you are in love.

Owing to the position he holds he is the
centre of much attention. He is unable, like
most men, to diverge from the high road.
Every movement of his is noticed, and may
cause him unpleasantness. Thus his position
forces him to be cautious. Yet you as his
loving wife accuse him of giving to every
woman what ought to be your position alone.

Your want of trust puts him on the rack.
You pluck his nerves to pieces, and dissect
his secret thoughts. You hate him for not

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ELSIE LINDTNER

being unfaithful to you in deed in that you
suspect continually that he is unfaithful to
you in thought. You hurt him by telling him
constantly that your mutual life is animal and
savage, that he lacks soul, and does not com-
prehend what it is to love with the soul
as you do. He retorts by calling you hyster-
ical.

Then a young girl comes to stay in your
house. She falls in love with your husband,
and he is in love with her. You say, "She
made a dead set at him." Instead of deciding
to remove her immediately you watch for
proofs of the criminal relations which you
suspect. I don't condemn you for getting
hold of your husband's letters by any means
honourable or the reverse, because jealous
wives are as irresponsible for their actions as
patients with a temperature of a hundred and
six. You triumph and cause yourself dia-
bolical torments by revelling in the stolen
love-letters. You find in them the "psycho-

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ELSIE LINDTNER

logical'' impulse that you have missed in your
husband's love.

What ought you to do now? Either you
must go, as you cannot stay with a man who
is in love with another; or you must remain
and leave him and his feelings in peace.
Nonsense! Instead you thrust a dagger
into his heart and turn it in the wound. If
he moans, you ask, "Do you still love
her?"

You think that love can be wrenched out
of a man's life as easily as a tooth is drawn,
root and all.

Agony brings your husband to reason and
his senses, he belies what he feels and cries,
"I love no one but you!" But even then can
you leave him alone? Certainly not. You
now insist on his telling everything, betraying
and deceiving. You know, as a Catholic, he
cannot claim a divorce, and yet you ask if he
will marry her in the case of your retiring?
Not a word of this offer do you intend seri-

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ELSIE LINDTNER

ously. You want to humiliate and torment
him.

Next you make a scene with the girl, per-
vert his words about her, misapply your
knowledge, and use such expressions as "Im-
purity, lies, vulgarity." But she only an-
swers, "I love him, I cannot do anything else."
And you find this exasperating.

Not once has it occurred to you to set your
husband free. He belongs to you, he is in
your power. You begin all over again. You
haven't an hour's rest because you must spy
on all his actions. You reproach him for
being a Catholic. His baseness is trebled be-
cause he is Catholic — as if lies had anything
to do with articles of faith.

You are leading a pretty life I Then your
husband falls ill. For a long time he has
complained of a tumour in his chest. "If it
grows it'll have to be removed for it may be
cancer." This is a trifling matter, or you
inwardly triumph over it as "a judgment."

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ELSIE LINDTNER

One morning he leaves the house on busi-
ness. He takes leave of you tenderly and
comes back over and over again to kiss you
with emotion. You at once suspect deceit,
and heap reproaches on him for intending to
do something behind your back. He smiles
sadly and says, "If that is so you will soon
hear what it is."

At mid-day you have a "vision," if what
you write is true. You see him lying on the
operating table. You telephone to the hospi-
tal and learn that the operation has taken
place. You hurry there and meet the girl.

To you he has not spoken of the serious
ordeal in store for him. But he has sent for
her.

This is the last drop that overflows your
cup of anguish. You take your sick husband
home. You torture him till he says, "Death
would be better than this."

And now you ask me what you ought to
do.

" 177

ELSIE LINDTNER

It would be much simpler to tell you what
you ought not to have done.

But it is too late for that now. All the
same, I will, to the best of my poor abilities,
give you advice and the benefit of my experi-
ence, gathered from contemplation of many
wretched and foolish cases in which people
tread happiness under foot, and then instantly
lament what they have lost.

First and foremost, Agnete, you must look
into yourself, and get rid of the lie which like
an octopus has caught you in its embrace and
smothers the best within you.

The lie about your husband's deficiency.
Your expressions of longing for a harmony of
souls is a lie, just as your pretension to love
with the soul and not with the senses is a lie.

You are one of the many women who, for
reasons which I fail to understand, find
no salvation in your relations to a man.
What for him was the highest enjoyment, for
you was only a torturing excitement. A

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ELSIE LINDTNER

physical shortcoming in yourself would in
him appear a crime in your eyes. Instead
of honestly and frankly explaining to him the
state of things and the cause of your unhappy
condition, you try to seek satisfaction by mak-
ing scenes.

Don't you see, dear child, a clever woman
never makes scenes. It isn't politic. A
scene that lasts an hour does fourteen days'
detriment to her appearance.

Your question, "What ought I to do now?"
really means, "How can I punish him
further?"

Rather you should ask, "What can I do to
heal his wounded soul?" And this is my
answer, Agnete, "You can do it by confessing
your own mistakes, and forgetting his."

You must not ape humility, and let some-
thing cry within you, "See what a sacrifice
I am making!"

No, you must acknowledge your wrong-
doing and not let it out of sight. Take it

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ELSIE LINDTNER

in both hands, hold it tightly like a costly
goblet, and keep your eyes fixed on it. You
should remember that it is no credit to you
that you have not betrayed him because there
has been no necessity; for you know nothing
of the mad impulse that can arise between two
human creatures, suddenly, like a storm in the
thickest part of the wood.

Above all things, recognise that at the time
your husband summoned his mistress to his
side when he thought he was going to die, he
acted from the greatest and most primitive
of instincts — the instinct of love.

Tell him that you have been wrong. Show
him your love. Give him your best. Not
for an hour or a day, but every hour and every
day. That is the only way to his heart, and
to your own peace of mind. And then the
time will come when mutual forgiveness has
performed its miracle.

Try to understand what I mean.

Hearty good wishes from your mother's old
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ELSIE LINDTNER

friend. If you like you may show your hus-
band this letter.

Elsie Lindtner.

It is certainly a very fine trait in Magna's
character, that she who used to be — well,
never mind, I won't say what — has never
breathed the name of her child's father to
any living soul.

The man must have been good and strong,
and I am fortunate indeed that, my Kelly has
found a protector in the little fellow. Oluf
doesn't like Kelly drinking schnaps. So
Kelly doesn't drink schnaps. Oluf wants
Kelly's moustache to grow, so Kelly lets it
grow.

"So long as I have Oluf, who takes care of
me, you need not be afraid of me." Those
words are close to my heart.

And yet I have still some anxiety. The
world is so big, and here things are reduced
to such a groove. I notice the effect on Oluf

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ELSIE LINDTNER

when Kelly tells him about America. Who
knows if the day will not come when the pair
come to bid me and Magna farewell to go off
on adventures?

Oluf was making plans the other day for
travelling to Canada, and camping in the
great forests far away from civilisation. The
boy had fixed it all up. They were to live
in the trees, and live by hunting and fishing.
Perched up on the highest branches they
would spread out their nets, and catch fish out
of the great river that rolls through the forest.
They would only enter a town twice a year
to sell the skins of the beasts they had caught.

Oluf is not too small for such dreams, but
Kelly—

I am so unwilling to budge from here till
Kelly has taken root in the soil so that he can't
tear himself away. He promises to stay here
always, but what is a promise?

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ELSIE LINDTNER

Dear Magna,

I must really tell you without delay.
Richard has been to see me. When Lucie
brought in his card I was dumbfounded.
But the moment he entered the room, thank
God I got over my feeling of embarrassment.
We stood and looked at each other, and were
at a loss how to begin the conversation, till
it occurred to Richard to say something about
Kelly. He knew, of course, the whole story.

It did one good to see the dear fellow, to
speak to him again. He said he could only
stay a few minutes, and he stayed two hours.
In reality, it was his little wife who sent him
to see me. She thought it so extraordinary
that she should not know me, who had played
such an important part for so many years in
Richard's life.

We spoke a great deal of our respective
children, and were both equally proud.

Now Richard has promised to visit me next
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ELSIE LINDTNER

Sunday with his family. You and our boys
come, too. In the course of the week I shall
return Richard's call.

Do you know, Magna, I intend to make
it quite a festive occasion, and there shall be
no feeling in the matter that I am a divorced
wife. You will have to lend me a few things
as most of my china is over in the villa, and
I shall order the food to be sent in from
Palace Street. One can be certain of getting
it good there, or would you advise going to an
hotel? I have got so out of the habit of en-
tertaining that I feel nervous at the thought
of it.

Anyhow, you must come, Magna, and take
care that Kelly is properly attired. Also see
to his hands.

When Richard was gone, I sat a long time
and meditated in retrospect on how very
nicely he and I had once got on together.
The one drawback was that we had no chil-
dren. On that account I made the sacrifice

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ELSIE LINDTNER

and left him. I have been royally rewarded
for it, through my Kelly.

Richard's wife plays a good game of
bridge, and we have already started a society
for the winter. The report of your enormous
pluck has reached the old Market Place, for
Richard spoke of you in terms of the warmest
admiration and esteem. At parting we both
positively had tears in our eyes.

May I, without hurting you, give a hint?
Please put on your silk dress, Magna. I
shall have a new one made, I think, as quickly
as possible. You see, this is to be a very im-
portant event in my life.

Embrace my boy for me, and remember
what I said about his hands.

Elsie.

185

DEAR Jeanne,
It is wrong of me to have been so
lazy lately about writing. But I have
had so much to do. I have, as a matter of
fact, moved house. It happened in a twin-
kling. This habitation became to let through
a death, and mine was taken by a young mar-
ried couple.

Now I am living on the beach road so far
out that I am hardly to be reckoned as belong-
ing to Copenhagen. Can you guess why I
have moved? Simply to be nearer the farm,
so childish does one become with advancing
age. Magna advised me strongly to come
out altogether, but I am not inclined to do
that. I am always and shall be a child of
towns, though in the year that Kelly has been
learning to be a farmer I have taken an al-
most incredible interest in cows, pigs, winter

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ELSIE LINDTNER

crops, and all the rest of it. My life is so full
of richness and light, 1 have nearly more joy
than I can bear, and no troubles at all.

Magna manages our "estate," as she always
calls it to please me, most admirably. And
how well she understands the art of setting
others to work!

My Kelly and her little Oluf are now, as
they always have been, inseparable, and I be-
lieve that the blue-eyed little comrade exer-
cises a mo»t beneficent influence on Kelly.
Magna told me one day that she had heard
Oluf saying — the boy lay in a hay-cock and
didn't know that Magna was on the other side
of it taking her after-dinner nap — "I have no
father, for my father died ten years before
I was born. But if you like to be my father,
I shall be quite content to have no other."

Magna visits me every time that she has
anything to do in the town. When the win-
dow is open I can hear the crack of her whip
above all the rest. And will you believe it,

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ELSIE LINDTNER

Jeanne, my heart begins to beat at the sound,
for it means that the boys are with her, or that
Magna is coming to tell me about them.
You should just see her sitting rosy and up-
right in the dog-cart, her head hidden in a
hood, with an old sealskin on, all rubbed the
wrong way, the same that twenty years ago
formed a topic of conversation the whole win-
ter through, because it had cost her poor,
struggling husband goodness knows how
many thousands.

Magna is now getting on for sixty. But
no one would think it. She beams as if the
whole world were at her feet. I look at least
ten years older, although, God knows, I take
a lot of trouble over my hair, and touch up
my cheeks a little, as I always did. She
makes a fuss about getting out of the cart as
if the coachman could not look after the
butter and eggs.

Just think, she gets up at four in summer
and at six in winter, and works for two.

ELSIE LINDTNER

There is no work that she considers is too
menial.

Lately she and Kelly painted all the four
buildings for Whitsun. And they did it like
the wind, so that one could hardly believe
one's own eyes. I sat out on the verandah
and watched, and was nearly sick with de-
light.

Then we had roast ribs and oxeyes for din-
ner. How Kelly eats I You can have no
conception of his appetite. It's not elegant,
but oh, so splendid! And after they have
been slaughtering Kelly brings me lambs' fry,
black puddings, and liver sausages. What I
once couldn't tolerate now tastes to me better
than the finest Astrakhan caviare.

How I chat on all about my own affairs.
But I don't forget my little fellow-traveller
on that account, and her troubles are mine.
Still, I am not going to make them such a seri-
ous matter as you do, for they are not worth
it. You have arrived at a stage when every-

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ELSIE LINDTNER

thing looks to you black, and must look so. I
should be deeply pained if I had not long ago
seen what the cause of it is. You are now
just about the age I was when we first met
each other; that age which for women is so
difficult and dangerous. And the inexplica-
ble happiness is not granted to every woman
to come through the time unscathed and tri-
umphant as I did.

I have thought about it, and wondered
what the reason could be why I, contrary to
every one else, should remain during those
years much the same as always; and I have
come to the conclusion that it was because I
lived so superficially at that time, and with-
out any deep feeling for other people.

But you, little Jeanne, since you linked
your fate so fortunately with Malthe's, have
been a sheer compost of love-worship and
self-sacrifice. I could have foretold long ago
that your transition age would be a hard time.
But now try yourself to make it easier. Re-

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ELSIE LINDTNER

view the circumstances, sift, and explain them
to yourself.

You have something to be thankful for that
does not fall to the lot of one woman in ten
thousand. Your husband continues to love
you as much to-day as when you first became
his. Does that not counter-balance every-
thing? Are the little cosmopolitan godless
angels of children really so hard to bring up
as you think? They have, of course, the ar-
tistic temperament, and you attempt to model
them into normal human beings. You will
never succeed.

And is Malthe's depression of spirits of any
great significance? There is cause for it.
He has of late, with justice or injustice, been
overlooked, and younger powers have been
preferred before him; his name has no longer
the cachet it once had, and even his talent
seems to have taken a back seat. But, dear
Jeanne, you are greatly to blame for this.
You have loved your husband so blindly and

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ELSIE LINDTNER

fondly that you have not set him on a pedestal,
but you have built a castle of air far up in the
highest clouds, and there you have placed
him like a golden ball on the most inacces-
sible pinnacle, with no one above him and no
one near him. . . . You have fed his ambi-
tion and stifled your own natural, critical
faculty, instead of standing at his side and be-
ing helpful to him in deciding between good
and mediocre, and now you complain that you
cannot console, and that he spurns you. You
are ashamed to say so, but I read between the
lines that you are very, very unhappy. . . .
And it is all because you are not well, dear
Jeanne, and your despondency is likely to last
some years.

But I could hit, I think, on ways and means
of putting your cares to flight; if only you
will at once make up your mind to bring your
little flock northwards, so that I may take
them with me to the Villa this summer, and

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ELSIE LINDTNER

teach the little goose-herds, the Parisian,
the Sicilian, and the Smyrna child, indifferent
Danish, while you and your Malthe close the
house, store your furniture, and trot round the
globe.

Don't let the thought of money stand in
your way. Tell Joergen from me that he
may with an easy hand use the money which
he would set aside as a dowry for his daugh-
ters.

He must be ashamed of himself if he has
not that opinion about his own flesh and
blood, that it will be a pure joy to any
one to take over the girls, even if they come
without a rag to their backs or clothed in
flour sacks.

Besides, I have made my will, and, dear
Jeanne, if I once played la banque at Monte
Carlo, I am not likely to do it again.

What a glorious summer it will be over

there in the White Villa with your chicks.
»3 193

• ELSIE LINDTNER

And we'll borrow Magna's Oluf and my
Kelly for a week, too. What does my old
travelling companion say to this?

Much love to you and to your husband, and
the whole small flock, from

Yours always,

Elsie Lindtner.

Poor Jeanne and poor Joergen. ... So it
fares worse with you than I thought.

I have the greatest desire to travel over to
them and mediate, but in these days my heart
is too touchy and my neuralgia a considera-
tion. I ought not by rights to sit out on the
balcony in the cool evening air, but I never
could be careful.

But it shall not happen; it would be too
foolish and irresponsible a step — people don't
separate in a hurry like that without a ghost
of a real reason. All very well if Malthe
had another string to his bow, or if Jeanne
was in love with another man, but, good

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ELSIE LINDTNER

Lord I one of them couldn't live without the
other, and yet she talks of having "weighed"
the matter, and thoroughly thought it out. I
am so angry my hands tremble.

Jeanne must really collect herself, and un-
derstand that all this is nothing but a transi-
tion. When I think of it, I can recall no case
among the many I have known — except, of
course, my own — of a single woman who has
managed to get through these years without
a slight rumpus of some kind. Afterwards
they have taken endless trouble to patch
up the wounds they have inflicted. Now,
Jeanne has been more than unreasonable in
this respect. There isn't a man in the world
who can stand such an everlasting adoration.

It was certainly brutal of him to say, "Mind
yourself, your house, and your children, but
don't meddle with my work."

But he meant nothing more by it than a
child in a temper does when it vents its anger
in trampling on a favourite toy. Yet the

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ELSIE LINDTNER

words rankled in Jeanne as a reproach — a re-
proach for what?

He has lost faith in his talent. Therefore
he is irritable and dejected, and Jeanne, who
all these years has had enough to do in bring-
ing children into the world, and caring for
them and him, now stands suddenly still, looks
round and behind her, and feels disillusioned.
Now is the time when she wants the tenderest
words he has ever lavished on her, but he,
with his head full of building plans, sees no
sense or object in two people talking of love —
two people who have proved their love with
their whole life.

One of them ought to fall sick unto death
... so that the other should forget his small
grievances.

Well, we shall see. If Jeanne listens to my
advice, and lets the children come up here, all
will be well. ... A little air and freedom is
what they need ; otherwise I shall have to sac-
rifice myself and for the second time knock

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ELSIE LINDTNER

about the world with my little travelling com-
panion.

So I have been in my old home once more!
Weeks will have to go by before I get over
the re-visiting of it. Every trace of me had
been removed — with a scrupulous care and
thoroughness as if every piece of furniture,
every hanging and picture had been danger-
ously infected. Doors had been obliterated,
and new ones cut in walls which used to be
doorless. Not even the peaceful white fire-
places were there any longer, but instead
gilded radiators. Had I never inhabited the
rooms they could not have seemed more
strange. I looked in vain for Richard's oak
bookcase, and the panels from his grand-
mother's country place.

I had to see everything. My namesake —
she who bears the name by right, not courtesy
— led me from one room to another. It was
as if she asked me incessantly, "Isn't there

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ELSIE LINDTNER

anything that reminds you of your reign?"
No, nothing, not the very least thing.

And then when we sat round the table at
which Richard and I used to sit alone with
the servants waiting behind our chairs, all the
vacant places were filled with children whose
appearance in the world was one of the condi-
tions of my departure. Wonderful, wonder-
ful I and a little sad.

I noticed how Richard exerted himself
that I should feel at ease. But he, too, I
think, was moved by the oddness of the situa-
tion.

She calls me Madame Elsie, and I call her
Madame Beathe.

Involuntarily I glanced round for the big
portrait Kroyer in his day painted of me, the
portrait which Richard simply idolised. He
saw what I was looking for, and cast down
his eyes. I felt inclined to say, "Dearest
friend, don't let us be sentimental. What
was once is no longer. But the picture was a

198

ELSIE LINDTNER

true work of art, and for that reason you
should have let it hang where it was."

One thinks such things, but doesn't say
them.

I was shown, too, the daughters' bedroom
upstairs, and there — there hung my picture
among photographs of actresses and school
friends. Finally it will land in the attic un-
less it occurs to some one to make money out
of it.

Why is it I cannot get rid of a feeling of
bitterness and humiliation? They were all
very kind and considerate. But when
Madame Beathe joking suggested a match be-
tween her Annelisa and my Kelly, I felt near
to crying. Annelisa is a thoroughly nice girl,
it is true. But I cannot endure the thought
of Kelly being looked down on, because of his
country manners. And she does look down
on him.

The little mistress has one fault. She is
too immaculately tidy. I noticed that all the

199

ELSIE LINDTNER

carpets had dusting sheets over them, and
naturally supposed their removal had been
forgotten, till I saw that every single article
on her dressing-table w^as covered in the
middle of the day with gauze, and I heard
her scolding one of the maids for not wash-
ing her hands before beginning to lay the
cloth after touching some books. Richard, I
am sure, finds it trying.

When he smokes a cigar she sits on pins and
needles for fear he shall scatter the ash about.
And God knows that for a man Richard is
tidy enough. She discovered a mark on the
white window-ledge, only a raindrop, I be-
lieve, but got up twenty times at least to scrub,
brush, and breathe on the spot.

It gives me food for thought. It is not for
me to judge what she does and how she acts.
But I can't get over it. I feel bound to
criticise her. And somehow the idea will
bother me that this is my home she is fussing
about in, and not the other way about.

200

ELSIE LINDTNER

Annelisa kissed me at parting, and asked if
she might soon come to see me. But she shall
not come when Kelly is at home. That is
certain.

And now they have invited me to a grand
dinner-party.

*
* ♦

Kelly must have a tail-coat, there is no
question of that.

*
* *

No, Kelly shall not have a dress suit.
Kelly won't come with me to the dinner-party
at Richard's. I am going alone.

*
* *

Pah I I am positively excited I It was a
grand occasion. And it did me good to hear
pretty speeches made about my appearance.
The orchids certainly did go well with my

201

ELSIE LINDTNER

mauve silk. They couldn't have come from
anywhere but Paris, of course.

Annelisa and I became great friends. She
took me up to her room and confided in me
that she and her mother don't get on.

You were afraid to move almost for fear
of being told you were making things in a
mess. And the child betrayed, by the way,
the little domestic secret that her mother now
had a bedroom to herself, because her father
was so untidy in shaving. When no one was
looking her mother went about with a duster
and wiped away the marks left by the soles of
your boots. Wasn't it too awful? But it
didn't seem so dreadful to me, for all at once
I saw plainly what it meant, and I consoled
the child by telling her that in a year or two
the scouring demon would be cleaned away.

Richard seems quite unconcerned. He
doesn't dream of complaining. But if he has
any memory, it must occur to him in looking
back, how in the years that I was passing

202

ELSIE LINDTNER

through the phase, everything inwardly and
outwardly went on the same as usual.

Richard plays a brilliant game of bridge.
But I must say I was utterly unprepared for
Professor Rothe making the third. He be-
haved as if nothing whatever had passed be-
tween us. And Lili's name was not men-
tioned.

Richard said when I rose to go, "You have
been the Queen of the Feast I" God knows I
blushed.

Maybe that in his secret heart he recognises
the great sacrifice I made for him. It was,
undoubtedly, no easy matter to leave him and
the beautiful house. But my exemplary con-
science was sufficient reward, even if I had
not afterwards received the guerdon of Kelly.

I believe I shall succeed in having a chat
with Madame Beathe about her tic doloreux.
If one broaches the subject tactfully, it's pos-

203

ELSIE LINDTNER

sible to achieve a great deal ; and it is only a
matter of getting her to see herself that her
malady is an appendage of her years.

What holes Kelly wears his stockings into,
and how black he makes his pocket-handker-
chiefs I I do believe the boy uses them to
wash the cart-wheels.

* *

Kelly said yesterday, "And if you hadn't
adopted me, I should have been in the gutter
all my life." How he looks at me!

I suppose I had better have left it alone.
I was told that for others such a period of in-
capability might exist, but not for her. She
knew the duties of a proper housewife, and
did not attend to a fifth part of things and
leave the rest in dirt and disorder.

204

ELSIE LINDTNER

It was a little too much that I should not
only come and interfere in her housekeeping,
but ascribe to her a fictitious illness that only
existed in my imagination. . . . And then
followed a long story which to listen to was
enough to make one laugh and weep together.
Goodness! she had actually been jealous of
my former regime, and had no peace till she
had turned the whole house topsy-turvy.
She didn't intend that I should know this.
But the storm burst when she thought to-day
I had been taking my revenge. Her one ob-
ject in life was to live for her husband, her
home, and her children, and she had no no-
tions about posing as a beauty, and be painted
by famous artists. And so on. . . .

She was so beside herself finally, that I was
obliged to cave in, and say that I had made
a mistake, she was not at the dangerous age,
and her scouring mania was a perfectly natu-
ral instinct, and it was a pity that all house-
wives did not follow her example.

205

ELSIE LINDTNER

And then we were good friends again, and
she told me that she was very glad I was
really quite old.

Any woman so old and harmless, of course
didn't count.

No, I shall not burn my fingers again. It
is most curious how forgetful one becomes
with the flight of years.

But forgetful is not exactly the right word.
It is much more a sort of half-unconscious
perversion of actual facts. The same kind
of thing as parents making out to their chil-
dren and almost believing it themselves, that
when they were children they were absolute
angels.

Magna, for instance, is capable of self-de-
lusion and lying with regard to the miseries
of her dangerous age. Magna, usually the
soul of truthfulness, who never tries to make
herself out better than she is, apparently be-
lieves that she got over those difficult years
easily and calmly. Good Godl

206

ELSIE LINDTNER

For once we nearly grew angry with one
another. I maintained that it was nothing
to be ashamed of, but rather an honour, that
she had afterwards matured into the magnifi-
cent, vigorous creature she now is.

But she wouldn't hear of it. The only
thing she would admit was Oluf, and she only
did that because he is flesh and blood.

We both became vehement, and in the end
Magna went the length of asserting in her ex-
citement that I had been far more affected by
the critical years than she and Lili Rothe put
together I

It was useless to protest against such a ludi-
crous mis-statement of facts. But we very
soon made it up again, and played our game
of Friday bridge. Unfortunately Kelly had
not come in with Magna.

He and Oluf had to sit up all night with a
sick cow. It would have sufficed if one of
them had done it, but where Kelly is there
Oluf will be also.

207

ELSIE LINDTNER

God bless Magna for her way of chatting^
about the two boys. I devour the words asn
they fall from her lips. It is so splendid to
hear her. Magna thinks it will be a good
thing for Kelly if he marries in a year or two
... it seems almost as if she had fixed on
some one already. What if it should be to the
new dairy-maid? Well, I should not mind,
so long as it was for my boy's happiness. In
that event we must think of taking a farm for
Kelly, for Kelly and Oluf.

*

It would interest me to prove to Magna
who was right. If I could bring myself to
reading through once more what I wrote
down in those days . . . yes, I will to-mor-
row.

I am ashamed, oh, how ashamed I am! It
is not fancy or forgery. I wrote every word

208

ELSIE LINDTNER

,i it in circumstances which bear witness to
^he honesty of the writer. I can never look
either Magna or Jeanne in the face again
... or in my boy's.

Not I who have a thousand times dreamed
and wished with all my heart that I had
brought him into the world I I can only
hang my head now and be thankful that he
never had such a person for his mother.

I, I, who strutted about like a peacock,
proud of my own perfections; I, who pointed
the finger of scorn at others; I, who pre-
sumed with the rights of a judge to condemn
or pardon others, inwardly jubilating trium-
phantly, "Thank God I am not as other men
are."

That can never be erased, never made
good.

Now that I have reached the evening of my

days, and my one occupation is to sit and look

out of the window at the people who pass, and

dream happy dreams for my boy, I commit

»4 209

ELSIE LINDTNER

no thought or deed that needs the veil of
oblivion.

But then, when I was in my prime . . .
when I might have applied my gifts for use-
fulness and pleasure — I was such a . . .

The memory of it can never be wiped out.
It can never be made good.

And I had thought that Kelly was to read
it all after my death, so that he might learn to
know what I really was; learn to despise me
as I lay in my grave ... I have had the fire
lit though it is summer. I intend to destroy
every line. Every line!

But will that prevent Kelly beholding me
in all my pitiableness? Am I such a coward?
Such a coward? . . . No, Kelly shall read it,
every scrap when I am dead.

Then he shall see what a deplorable,
wretched creature I was till love entered my
life, when he did. Then he shall know the
great miracle which love wrought.

210

ELSIE LINDTNER

Kelly has a claim to me in bad as well as
good. . . .

I feel to-day so ineffably tired. It seems
as if this day were to be my last. The day of
judgment, when I am to stand face to face
with myself.

But the day of judgment is to be followed
by regeneration. Kelly is to be my regenera-
tion. Not for myself do I pray to be granted
a year, an hour; I pray for Kelly's sake alone,
that our meeting that night may not have been
in vain. This prayer throbs from my lips
into Eternity.

Will it be heard?

*

There are the bells chiming for vespers.
Now Kelly is coming home from his work,
so tall, strong, and healthy. They are busy
with the spring ploughing, and to-morrow

211

ELSIE LINDTNER

will be Sunday. Then I shall see him, have
him to myself. . . .

Kelly, Kelly . . . why aren't you here at
this hour? Kelly, I want to see you, and to
thank you.

Be good ... be happy. . . .

212

THE DANGEROUS AGE

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Karin Michaelis

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AN UNOFFICIAL HONEYMAN

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AWAKENING

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MANALIVE

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THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN

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ing along the way, to the fascination and bedazzlement of the
reader." — Washington Evening Star

"The stories are of the dashing and brilliant kind that
Stevenson invented — exciting talcs told in an artistic manner."

— Albany Argus

JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK

THE GLORY OF CLEMENTINA

BY

William J. Locke

Author of "The Beloved Vagabond," "Simon the

Jester," etc.

Cloth i2mo $1-30 net Postage 12 cents

Illustrations by Arthur I. Keller

"Mr. Locke has succeeded in uniting with the firm careful-
ness of his early work the rapid, fluent, vibrating style that
makes his later books so delightful ; therefore it is easy to make
the deduction that 'Clementina' is the best piece of work he has
done." — New York Evening Sun

"Among the novels of the past five years no books have more
consistently produced an effect at once certain, satisfactory and
delightful than those of William J. Locke. This latest addition
to his shelf is full of life and laughter and the love not only of
man for woman but of man for man and for humanity. Mr.
Locke is a born story-teller and a master of the art of ex-
pression."— The Outlook

"The book contains a mass of good material, with original
characterization, and is written in a style piquant and clever."

— The Literary Digest

"A story containing the essence of humanity, with an abun-
dance of sensible and sensitive, casual and unobtrusive com-
mentary upon life and man, and especially upon woman."

— Boston Evening Transcript

"It contains even more of the popular qualities than are us-
ually associated with the writings of this noted author."

— Boston Times

"Mr. Locke's flights into the realms of fancy have been a
delight to many readers. He has a lightness of touch that is
entirely captivating, and his remarkable characterization of in-
consequent people gives them a reality that is very insistent."

— Baltimore Evening Sun

"Never has he drawn so deeply from that well that is the
human heart ; never so near those invisible heights which are
the soul; and, if we are not altogether mistaken, 'The Glory of
Clementina' will also prove to be that of its author."

— Baltimore News

"A fascinating story with delicate, whimsical touches."

— Albany Times-Union

"The book seems destined to live longer than any written
by the author to date, because it is so sane and so fundamen-
tallv true." — Philadelphia Enquirer

JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK

UNIVERSITY OF C "NIA LIBRi*^

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